Her Bodyguard Page 5

  “No, no, no—don’t touch me.” She backed away, pressing her cupped hands more tightly over her nose and mouth, trying to hold in the screams that wanted to escape.

  She glanced toward the door.

  “No, Ange.” He spread his arms and held his hands palm up. “Don’t panic. You don’t want to do that. You’re safe here.”

  An hysterical laugh escaped her lips. “Safe—?”

  She bolted for the door, but he caught her easily and pulled her back against him, pinning her arms.

  “No!” She gathered as much breath as she could, in preparation for screaming, but he fastened one arm around her and clamped his other palm over her mouth.

  “Listen to me, Ange. I need you to stay quiet and listen.”

  She tried to bite him, but his hand held her too tightly.

  “Ange, you’ve got to trust me. You’ve got to calm down. I’m not going to hurt you. All I want to do is protect you.”

  She exerted all the effort she had to pull against his hold on her. He let her go and she backed away, feeling behind her for the door. She knew it was back there. They’d come straight into the room. The room was dark—all the better to see her with, she figured.

  “It’s okay, Ange. It’s me. You know you can trust me.”

  She watched him warily. This was Lucas. She didn’t understand what was going on. But he had rescued her.

  She glanced cautiously around. The room appeared to be a warehouse space with no interior walls. The only light was from the window. The only furnishings she could see were the long table, two chairs and a cot. If there was a bathroom somewhere beyond the reach of the pale light, she couldn’t see it.

  “Ange,” he said gently. “Come over here and sit down.”

  She took several cautious steps toward him. He gestured toward the other chair, but she didn’t take it. She stood her ground.

  “Tell me what happened,” she said flatly.

  He shrugged. “Some of it I don’t understand myself. I was surprised as hell—”

  “Lucas!” she snapped. “Don’t give me your charming excuse.” Those few words depleted her breath. Her heart was still beating so fast that she could barely get enough air. “Just tell me the truth. Please.”

  Lucas grimaced internally as he took in Angela’s pale face, the shine of unshed tears in her eyes and her horrified expression. He’d scared her half to death, but he’d had no choice. The fact that someone else had gotten into her apartment without her knowing meant she was in more danger than he’d realized

  “Okay,” he said and drew in a fortifying breath. “I’m here because your brother asked me to watch over you.”

  Angela’s arms tightened around herself, and a tiny wrinkle appeared between her eyes. “My brother? Brad?”

  “He’s the one.” Lucas sent her a small smile, but it only earned him a narrow-eyed frown.

  “Brad wanted you to watch me?” She shook her head. “That doesn’t make any sense. What does he think I’m going to do, that I need watching?”

  The color was coming back to her face. That was good.

  “It’s not what you’re doing.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “Remember him telling you about his big case? The one you heard about from Hank Percy?”

  “How do you know about that? Oh.” She looked at the monitors. “You weren’t just watching me. You were listening, too? Oh, this is unbelievable.” She dropped into the chair and pushed her fingers through her hair, then covered her face.

  “Please just tell me everything,” she mumbled.

  “Brad is prosecuting a racketeering and murder case against Nikolai Picone. He’s a huge crime boss in Chicago. Until Picone is convicted and sentenced, Brad and his family are under an order of protection.”

  Her head shot up. “Brad? The girls? Are they all right?”

  He nodded. “That’s what an order of protection is for. They’re under twenty-four-hour surveillance, for their safety, and armed security guards are staying in their house and escorting them whenever they leave.”

  “They think that this Picone might try to hurt Sue or the girls?”

  “He’s made threats.”

  “Threats? Why isn’t he locked up?”

  “He is. He’s remanded, but he has a long reach, long enough to give orders from prison.”

  “Orders? You mean, he ordered a hit on them?” Her face drained of color again. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing.”

  Lucas clamped his jaw. “Well, believe it.”

  “Why in hell didn’t Brad tell me this? Damn him and you. Neither one of you have ever thought I could take care of myself. Well, I’m doing quite well, thank you. I don’t need your sneaky secret protection. I’m calling Brad right now.” She began to dig in her purse.

  Lucas caught her hand in his. “No, you’re not. You need to listen to me. Brad didn’t want to risk exposing your existence by asking the police to extend the order of protection to you. He felt like it would be putting a bull’s-eye on your back. He thought the best solution, since you two have different last names, was to just keep quiet, and make sure you stayed under the radar. Picone’s men might never know about you.”

  “So why are you here? And how, by the way? What about your job?”

  “Brad called me to see if I could recommend somebody to watch over you for a week or two, just until the trial is over and Picone is behind bars. He’s asking for solitary for Picone, considering his far-reaching influence. I had some time on my hands, so I told him I’d take care of it.”

  Angela stood and turned away, looking out the streaked, dirty window. “So you came here, wired my apartment with all the latest greatest surveillance equipment and didn’t bother to tell me?”

  The pale light etched her face in shadow, like a chiaroscuro painting. Her chin went up and her lips flattened. Her fists clenched at her side. She was furious.

  After a couple of seconds, she turned her attention to the monitors, studying them. “You got into my apartment? Put all those cameras in there? Did Bouvier let you in?”

  “No. The locks on your doors are pathetic. You need new ones.”

  “I know that. Which one shows the bedroom camera?”

  “I didn’t put a camera in your bedroom.”

  She tilted her head and looked at him. “What do you mean? Why not? You put one everywhere else.”

  He shook his head. “I guess I should have. But I just couldn’t. I’d invaded your privacy already.” He pushed his fingers through his hair. “If I had though, I’d have found Doug’s spy cam and you wouldn’t have had to go through that scare. I’m sorry now that I didn’t.”

  She arched a brow and her chocolate eyes turned to black.

  “You didn’t put a camera in my bedroom. And yet there was one in there. Doug’s camera, your camera. Seems to me like there are an awful lot of cameras.” She turned to face him. “Do you actually expect me to believe that two spy cams were placed in my apartment at the same time by two different people for two different reasons? Isn’t that a little far-fetched?”

  She propped her fists on her hips. “So tell me, Lucas, is Doug Ramis working for you?”

  Chapter Five

  “Come on, Angela,” Lucas said, his voice harsh with exasperation. “Of course Doug Ramis isn’t working for me. That’s absurd. I don’t even know him.”

  “It’s a wonder. You seem to be two of a kind.” Angela was glad for the anger that was burning in her chest and making her scalp tingle. She needed it to offset the mind-numbing horror of what Lucas had just told her.

  He’d been spying on her. Of course, he’d had a very good reason.

  There was a hit man after her.

  She shook her head and sank back into the chair. “I need to call Brad. He’s overreacting, right? Why didn’t you tell him? You’ve never overreacted to anything, ever. I mean, seriously. Hit men don’t go after people in real life.”

  She started to reach for her cell phone, bu
t Lucas put his hand over hers. The look on his face told her he didn’t think Brad was overreacting at all. Brad feared for her life. And so did he. And that meant she was in danger.

  Suddenly, she felt paralyzed. Her limbs felt too heavy to lift. “Fine,” she said, trying to pretend her voice wasn’t shaking, “I’ll wait till tomorrow to call Brad. Trust me, I’ll still be just as mad.”

  “I believe you. Here,” Lucas said, twisting in his chair to retrieve a bottle of water out of his little refrigerator. “Drink this.”

  When she didn’t reach for it, he put it in her hand. She relished the shock of cold against her palm. “So where is this hit man? Is he already here?”

  “I don’t know. We don’t even know if there actually is one. I’ve only been here since Monday. But that camera—” he indicated the monitor that was recording the street directly in front of the apartment building’s door “—was the first one I set up. So it’s been recording every person that passed in front of your building since Tuesday evening.”

  “Have you seen someone?”

  “I noticed one guy hanging around, but my guess is he’s your—your ex.” He dug through a stack of papers and handed her a poor-quality photo printed on plain paper.

  She held it so the light from the window shone on it. The quality was awful, but she had no doubt who it was. “That’s Doug.”

  “He’s been walking past your building at least twice a day.”

  A shudder of aversion shook her.

  “My guess is he’s trying to catch you on your way out or coming home. He never went inside while I was watching.” He gestured toward another monitor. “I have a camera on the rear entrance, too.”

  “This is so unbelievable,” Angela muttered. Her head was pounding and she still felt shaky.

  “I know. I burned the feeds from the front entrance camera onto DVDs. I need you to look at them and tell me if you recognize anybody.”

  “Recognize, as in if I know who they are? Like my neighbors? My friends?”

  He shook his head. “More like if you recognize someone you’ve noticed hanging around.”

  “Oh.” With a start, she remembered the man who’d followed her off the streetcar. “I thought someone was following me. I kept feeling him breathing down my neck on the streetcar. But when I finally worked up the nerve to turn around and look, he’d turned away. He had on a blue baseball cap.”

  “Yeah? What did the cap say?”

  She frowned. “I don’t know. I didn’t really get a good look at the front.”

  Lucas inserted a disk into a DVD player and turned the monitor toward her. “I’m going to put this on fast-forward. If you see anything—anything at all that catches your attention—stop it and tell me. We’ll look at it. You might be surprised at what your subconscious has noticed.”

  She nodded. “Okay.” She rubbed her temples and squeezed her eyes shut.

  Lucas laid a hand on her shoulder. “I know you’re tired. Just watch for an hour or so, then you can get some sleep. I’ll make up the cot for you.”

  ANGELA FELT LIKE HER EYES were about to drop out of their sockets. They burned and ached. She’d watched the recording of the people passing by her building for almost an hour, hardly blinking, and the pounding in her head had become a painful drumbeat.

  Then she saw him.

  “Oh, my God,” she muttered.

  Lucas looked over at her. “What is it?”

  “How do you stop this thing?”

  He scooted his chair over, took the remote from her hand and paused the picture. Then he pressed Rewind. “Tell me when to stop.”

  Angela blinked and tried to focus on the rapidly reversing pictures. “Okay,” she said.

  Lucas pressed Play and the two of them watched the screen together.

  “There!” she cried.

  He rewound and pressed Play.

  “There. Stop. That’s him. That’s Doug.”

  On the screen, someone walked up and started talking to Doug.

  “Oh, no,” she whispered.

  “What? Who is that?”

  “It’s Billy Laverne, my neighbor. I had no idea they knew each other.”

  As she watched, Billy told Doug something, and they both looked around, then Doug nodded and Billy went in the door.

  Doug pulled out a cell phone and made a call, then hung up and followed Billy into the building.

  “You’ve never seen them talking before?”

  “No. I’m not sure I’ve ever even seen them on the same day, until yesterday.” She read the time and date stamp on the screen. “Wednesday afternoon at four twenty-three. This is after I ran into Billy and Doug on the way home.”

  “Well, he’s either following Billy, planning to sneak into your apartment or meeting with your building superintendent. Speaking of which, how much do you know about your super?”

  “Mr. Bouvier? He’s a cheapskate, but he seems nice enough.”

  “Anton Bouvier has several arrests for drug charges. Mostly possession, rather than intent to sell.”

  “Really?” She was surprised. She didn’t like Bouvier, but she’d never had the impression that he was a criminal.

  “Really. And didn’t you notice his arm? Those are prison tats.”

  “What?” She had no idea what he was talking about.

  “Prison tattoos.”

  “They let them get tattoos?”

  Lucas stared at her for a second with his brows lowered, then he raised them and gave his head a shake. “No. The inmates do them themselves.”

  “Oh. It’s hard to imagine Doug being involved with an ex-con.”

  “I’m going to have Dawson do a background check on Doug, Bouvier and your neighbor, Laverne. I wouldn’t be surprised if at least two of them have a history.”

  Lucas was right. She shouldn’t be living in that building. She needed to find another apartment.

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “Do you seriously think that they’re in a big conspiracy to do something to me? Why would they? It makes no sense.”

  Lucas shook his head. “Maybe not. But if someone in the Picone family is after you, there’s no telling what lengths they’ll go to.”

  “So you think the Picone family somehow recruited Mr. Bouvier and Doug and Billy to help spy on me? Isn’t that a little preposterous? I mean, Doug probably never did anything overt in his life.” She licked her dry lips and tipped the water bottle, but she’d emptied it.

  “You’re probably right about him. He might never do anything on his own. Plus I’m thinking your super, Bouvier, could walk all over him.” As he spoke, Lucas produced a new, ice-cold bottle.

  She accepted it gratefully and took a long swallow. The cold liquid eased her parched throat. “I’m getting really scared.”

  “Good. You need to be scared. I don’t want you to underestimate the danger you could be in.” He handed her the remote again.

  “Watch a little while longer. See how long Doug stays in there. I’m going to take a look at the lobby cam. Whatever he was doing in there, we’ve got it on disk.”

  “Okay.” Angela pressed Fast-Forward and watched the screen for a few minutes, until the water bottle slipped out of her fingers.

  Lucas scooped it up. “Okay. That’s enough. You’re about to fall asleep sitting there.”

  She couldn’t deny it.

  “Here. Lie down.” He pointed to the cot. “It’s not much, but I can promise you it’s more comfortable than it looks.”

  She eyed the cot skeptically. “It would have to be. What are you going to do?”

  “Sit right here. I’m going to see what Doug was up to in your building.”

  The cot looked like a camp cot, made of aluminum and canvas, but there was a pad on it, covered by a snowy white sheet. And a plump pillow that looked very inviting. Suddenly Angela found it hard to keep her eyes open, even though her whole body was trembling.

  “I don’t think I can sleep,” she said.

  “I give y
ou two minutes once your head hits the pillow,” Lucas said, touching her shoulder to guide her toward the cot. As warm and comforting as his touch felt, she shrugged it off and leaned backward, away from him.

  She didn’t want him close to her. Didn’t want him touching her. The first time she’d seen him on the street the other day, she’d realized that, for her, nothing had changed. She was still smitten by her big brother’s best friend.

  Even though she’d found out that Lucas had been spying on her without her knowledge, just like Doug. Did the fact that he was doing it for her own safety and at the request of her brother make it less heinous? Less creepy?

  She didn’t think so. The very fact that his touch made her feel safe creeped her out.

  He sent her an odd look and then turned toward the monitor. “Go ahead. Try to sleep for a while. I’ll be awake.”

  She slipped off her shoes and sat carefully on the cot, then lay down. The camp bed felt sturdier than it looked. Of course, it would have to be to hold Lucas’s long, powerful body.

  A big sigh escaped her lips as she let the pillow take the weight of her head.

  “Maybe all this won’t seem so horrible after I’ve had some sleep.”

  Lucas didn’t say anything, but his shoulders, silhouetted against the streaked window, stiffened. Her gaze lingered on the nape of his neck. His hair was short, but still long enough to slide over the collar of his pullover shirt. The streetlights shining through the window played over the muscled planes of his biceps and forearms and outlined his long lean body.

  Lucas Delancey was as sexy and attractive as he’d always been. And as dangerous.

  Deliberately, Angela closed her eyes and tried to wipe her mind clear of the all the dangers that lurked around her. Doug Ramis stalking her. The likelihood that a hit man might be after her. And the very close proximity of the only man on the planet whose kiss had left her longing for more.

  LUCAS FROWNED AS HE WATCHED the figures on the screen prancing around in fast-forward. He wished Angela could understand that everything he’d done was for her protection.

  But those chocolate eyes had held nothing but disgust when she looked at him. She’d put him in the same category as her ex-boyfriend. In her opinion, they both were perverted creeps.