“That’s how he knew I was coming to Kansas City?”
Griff nodded. “It’s the easiest explanation.”
She grunted at his offhand words. Hacking into someone’s credit card account was easy? Clearly, he didn’t understand the real world. Most people could barely get online to check their own account, let alone break into someone else’s.
“Which means he has to have some expertise with computers,” she pointed out.
“Or hired someone who does,” he said, returning his attention to the computer. “Damn,” he muttered.
“What’s wrong?”
“Whoever did it managed to block me from tracing them.”
A nasty fear battled with the doughnuts and coffee in the pit of her stomach.
“So we can’t figure out who tried to hack my account?”
“Not without some effort. And time we don’t have.” She could feel him stiffen, his breath hissing loudly through his clenched teeth, as if he’d been struck by a sudden thought. “Wait.”
She studied his grim profile. “Griff ?”
He scowled at the screen. “When the flowers were sent to you, the order should have alerted me.”
She leaned closer, pressed against his shoulder as he closed out the open files and started a fresh search for new ones.
“That’s quite a program,” she said, not entirely comfortable with the knowledge he could keep track of her with the press of a button.
“Creating software to siphon intel from cyberspace is like creating a net to catch a specific fish,” he said, his tone distracted. “Too tightly meshed and it scoops up everything, including the trash, and buries anything of interest. Too loose and the intel slips away.”
Her discomfort spread from a personal level to a more universal unease.
She wasn’t a crazy conspiracy theorist, but she wasn’t naïve. She knew that the technology Griff created could be abused by people with too much authority and not enough integrity to accept a personal right to privacy.
“How big can you make the net?”
“As big as it needs to be.”
“That’s a lot of intel.”
As if hearing the edge in her voice, Griff turned his head to send her a faint smile.
“Yes. Which is why the program that I lease to law enforcement has a few tweaks.”
She studied him with a lift of her brows. “What sort of tweaks?”
“If you want to cast a large net, then it only works for a limited amount of time before the information is automatically dumped,” he explained. “Or you can do a targeted search for a lengthier amount of time.”
She gave a small nod. “Absolute power.”
“Corrupts absolutely,” he finished.
They shared a long glance, and Carmen felt that odd tug of fascination toward her companion. Not the awareness of a woman for a handsome, successful man. That was easy to explain. This was a sensation of catching a peep of that brilliant mind of his and wanting to climb into his lap and just talk for hours. Days. Years.
That was . . . weird.
And more than a little unnerving.
“So why didn’t your program get triggered?” she forced herself to ask.
He leaned toward the computer screen, his brow furrowed.
“I’m going to find out.” His fingers again flew over the keys and suddenly the image of an invoice from the flower shop filled the screen. “Here it is,” he murmured, quickly scanning the order. He grunted as he pointed toward the top of the invoice. “That’s the reason.”
From Carmen’s angle, it was impossible to read the tiny print.
“What happened?”
“They put your name in wrong,” he said. “It’s listed as Carrie Jacobs, not Carmen.”
Carrie?
Carmen surged off the bed, goose bumps spreading over her skin like frost across a window.
“What did you say?”
He lifted his head, his body going still as he caught sight of her expression.
“It was typed in as Carrie.” He set aside the laptop and rose to his feet. “What is it?”
Someone walking across her grave.
She shook her head, desperately trying to dislodge the thought.
“Nothing,” she said, her voice an octave too high. “I’m sure it was just a mistake.”
“You don’t look like you’ve seen a ghost just because of a mistake,” he said.
She sucked in a deep breath before slowly releasing it.
It didn’t help. Her stomach remained tied in a painful knot and her mouth dry.
“When I was young, I was called Carrie,” she admitted.
Griff stepped toward her, his tension filling the air with a tangible sizzle.
“By who?”
She shrugged. “Everyone. It wasn’t until I went to live with my grandparents that they insisted I go by Carmen.”
Chapter Nine
December 23, Baltimore, MD
Joy sensed she was being watched.
It’d started two days ago. She’d taken on extra hours at the small community college where she worked as a janitor. During the Christmas break there was always a frenzy of activity to polish floors, paint walls, and tidy up the campus before the students returned. It wasn’t a dream job, but it paid the rent on her cramped trailer, and more importantly, it gave her a steep discount on the night classes she was taking.
She wasn’t going to be a janitor forever.
Nope. She intended to be a medical lab technician.
Her future was upwardly mobile and far away from the sort of crappy life her mother was trapped in.
Which was what made the sensation that there was some pervert out there keeping tabs on her all the more annoying. She didn’t have the time or interest to deal with the creep.
With a shiver as the morning air sliced through the fabric of her secondhand coat, Joy turned in a slow circle. Her eyes took in the narrow road that had been plowed during the night, piling the snow into a ridge along the sidewalk. The white clapboard buildings next to her were silent, the residents either at work, or students who’d gone home for the holidays.
Overhead the sky was a sullen gray that bled into the misty fog that surrounded her. The sort of morning a person wished they lived on a tropical beach.
Someday . . .
There was no one in sight, but Joy had the heightened senses of a girl who’d spent her entire life surrounded by rough, aggressive men who were eager to take advantage of any weakness.
“I know you’re there,” she called out, her hand slipping into her coat pocket. She never left home without her handy-dandy can of pepper spray. “Hello,” she called again. “Step out where I can see you or I’m calling the cops.”
There was the crunch of footsteps on snow, then a dark form appeared from a nearby alley.
Joy frowned. The stranger looked to be in his mid or early twenties with a heavy jaw and sleepy eyes. He was short and stocky beneath his parka, with dark hair that was cut short and stuck up with cowlicks at the back. He had small, dark eyes and skin that was oddly yellow, as if he was jaundiced.
Weird.
He held up a gloved hand, and a nervous smile twitched around his lips.
“Wait,” he said, moving slowly forward.
Joy took a step backward. No need to panic. It was broad daylight on a public street. Right?
“Who are you?” she demanded.
His lips were still twitching with a nervous smile as he approached.
“Josh.” He held out his hand. Like she was actually going to shake it.
She took another step back. “Why are you following me?”
“I wasn’t following you.”
She made a sound of disgust. “Yeah, right.”
Something flashed through his eyes. “This is a public street. Just because I was walking behind you doesn’t mean nothing.”
Her fingers tightened on the pepper spray. “Look, I’m not stupid. You weren’t walking behind me. Y
ou were hiding in the alley.”
He hunched his shoulders. “Okay, maybe I wanted to see you.”
“Ew.” She wrinkled her nose. He reminded Joy of her oldest stepbrother. The sort of boy who was always trying to get a peek of her in the shower, or fingering through her underwear drawer. “You’re a creeper.”
“Don’t call me that.” His expression became petulant.
“Why not? It’s true.”
“I was just trying to work up my courage to talk to you.”
“Men who want to talk to me don’t hide in the alley.”
“I’m shy.”
She rolled her eyes. “Shy?”
“I am.” He continued to move toward her, his movements slow and lumbering like a sloth. “Can we just talk?”
“No. Stay back,” she said.
“Please.”
She brought the pepper spray out of her pocket, holding it out in warning.
“I said stay back, you perv.”
“Why do you call me names?” He scowled, but he continued forward. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. His footsteps sounded unnaturally loud. “That’s not very nice.”
“I’ll spray you.”
He stopped right in front of her. Close enough she could catch the foul scent of his breath.
Coffee and stale cigarettes.
Gross.
“There’s no need to be a bitch,” he groused.
Her upper lip curled in disgust. “God. Jerks like you make me sick.”
“He told you not to be a bitch, Carrie,” a voice whispered directly in her ear.
Joy parted her lips to scream, belatedly realizing that the crunch, crunch she’d been hearing hadn’t come from the man standing in front of her. But before she could make a sound, a gloved hand clapped roughly over her mouth and she felt a pinprick at her neck.
Instantly her brain went fuzzy.
Shit. She’d been drugged.
The man who called himself Josh moved in close, watching her features slacken with the concentration of a child watching an ant being fried beneath a magnifying glass.
Strong arms wrapped around her from behind, catching her as her knees went weak. Her last thought was . . .
They have the wrong woman. My name’s not Carrie.
December 23, Missouri
Griff had a firm understanding of his strengths. And his weaknesses.
He had an above-average intelligence. He could outrun most casual joggers without breaking a sweat. He could coax a computer to do anything he wanted.
But people . . .
He was usually clueless.
With Carmen Jacobs, however, he seemed to sense exactly what she was feeling. Which was why he kept her busy with the need to check out of the hotel and to return her SUV to the rental agency. He kept his truck for the long drive. He also insisted that she purchase a plane ticket to Baltimore.
If she was being electronically monitored, he wanted whoever was watching her to think she was going to spend the next twelve hours traveling from airport to airport.
By the time she’d regained command of her shaken composure, they were already heading along I-70 to Louisville.
“I still think we should go to Baltimore,” she complained, sitting stiffly in the leather seat as she studied the crowded highway that stretched in front of them.
It was two days until Christmas and everyone was anxious to get to their destination.
He risked a quick glance at Carmen, taking in her tense profile.
He sympathized with her urge to try to track down the stalker. The thought that there was a potential killer out there hunting more women made his gut twist with dread.
But he wasn’t going to let her charge into an obvious trap.
Besides, he couldn’t dismiss the flower order. It might have been a typo, but he didn’t think so.
From the beginning the stalker had tried to establish an intimate connection with Carmen.
If he was just a random whackadoodle who’d been inspired by her book, there would have been no need to send her the pictures. Or follow her to Kansas City. Or send her the flowers.
This was personal.
“We could chase shadows. I’m sure that’s what the bastard wants,” he said. “Or we can try to figure out who he is.”
She clicked her tongue. “I don’t know why you’re so convinced that it’s someone from my past.”
He slowed as a car raced past him, spraying snow and ice and rock salt onto his windshield.
“Who else would call you Carrie?” he demanded.
“It could have been a clerical error,” she insisted.
Griff ’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. He didn’t miss the edge in her voice. This was about more than her need to track down the killer.
She didn’t want to go back to Louisville.
“I assume your real name is Carmen?” he asked. There was no use in demanding to know why she was reluctant to go home.
Carmen would tell him when she was ready. And not a second before.
“Yes,” she said. “My mother was an amateur opera singer who loved Bizet’s Carmen. She was determined to name her first daughter after the opera.” There was a brief hesitation before she continued. “My father agreed with the understanding that I would be called Carrie.”
“He wasn’t an opera fan?”
“Actually, that’s how they met,” she said, her voice strained. “His parents were sponsors of a small community theater and my mother was performing. I remember my father telling me that it was love at first sight.”
“So why Carrie?”
“My father thought Carmen made me sound too adult. He wanted me to stay his little princess.”
“It sounds like he loved you very much,” he said in low tones.
She gave a short, humorless laugh. “Not hardly. My father didn’t know how to love.”
Griff resisted the urge to tell her that she wasn’t the only one with a father who didn’t know squat about loving a child.
Right now this was about Carmen and who might be tormenting her.
“Tell me about your family.”
There was a rustle of fabric as Carmen wiggled out of her coat. He heard a hiss of pain as the movement jostled the wound on her upper arm. Anger flared through him. When he found the bastard responsible for attacking her, he intended to make sure there was some serious payback before he was handed over to the authorities.
“My grandmother died when I was twenty and my grandfather passed two years ago,” she said as she settled back in her seat.
“They weren’t your only family, were they?”
He risked a quick glance to catch her momentary confusion.
“Oh,” she at last said. “My father has a younger brother, my uncle Lawrence.”
It was obvious she didn’t consider the relatives on her father’s side as part of her family.
Not surprising after what had happened.
“What do you know about him?”
He could sense her confusion. “You can’t imagine that he’s involved.”
“Humor me,” Griff said. He didn’t know if he suspected an actual member of her family or not. He just needed a place to start. “Is he your father’s only sibling?”
“Yes. My father was a few years older, so when his parents were killed in a plane crash, he became Lawrence’s guardian until he was old enough to go to college.”
“They were close?” Griff asked.
“I think so,” she said, the words hesitant, as if she’d never given thought to her uncle or his connection to her father. “They inherited my grandparents’ business and ran it together.”
“What sort of business?”
“A chain of hardware stores,” she said. “There were several of them spread across the state of Kentucky.”
Griff nodded. He’d known that her parents had been wealthy. The fact that they’d been a part of the elite Louisville society had made their deaths all the more scandalous. But he hadn’t known
how they’d made their money.
“The brothers were equal partners?” he demanded.
“I guess.” She drummed her fingers on the console that separated the bucket seats. A visible indication of her discomfort. “My father took care of the finances. I’m not sure exactly what my uncle did, but he traveled a lot. My cousins used to come stay with us when he was out of town.”
Griff ’s interest in Lawrence Jacobs went up several notches.
“Did your cousins stay with you because his wife traveled with him?”
She gave a firm shake of her head. “No. My aunt Viola was . . .” Her words trailed away as she dredged up ancient memories. “I think my mother used to say ‘delicate.’ I’m not sure what that meant, but she didn’t want to take care of Matthew and Baylor when my uncle was gone.”
“Two boys?”
“Yes.”
Another spike of interest. “Younger than you?”
“No, both of them were older.” She paused to consider. “I think Matthew is five or six years older and Baylor around four,” she finally said. “Lawrence married right out of college. My dad was a confirmed bachelor until he met my mother. She was ten years younger than him.”
“Is your uncle still in Louisville?”
“I lost track of them after—” She bit off her words, clearing her throat before she continued. “After I moved in with my grandparents.”
Griff frowned. He needed to make sure he understood the situation.
“You haven’t had any contact at all?”
“No.”
“What about your inheritance?”
“What inheritance?”
Her tone was genuinely baffled. Hadn’t she been the least curious about the fortune that should have been hers?
“Do you know what happened to your parents’ property?” he pressed. “Or the money from the business?”
He heard her shifting in her seat, as if she was increasingly agitated by his questions.
“My grandparents refused to discuss anything to do with my father or his family.”
Griff was distracted as a car zoomed past with the windows rolled down and blaring “Jingle Bells.” He slowed, assuming the driver had already been indulging in some pre-Christmas spirits.
Ho. Ho. Ho.
“Are there any other relatives?” he finally asked.