Chapter 28
Adam
The sun warmed the summer morning, and everything was alive—birds, pedestrians, and apparently every one of my coworkers, who’d all arrived early.
“So, you and Jo Malcom make an adorable pair…” Kenny batted his stupid Ken-doll lashes at me from where he sat, chin in his hands, on the stairs.
“Are you really sitting there so you could be here when I walked in?” My voice had an unnecessary edge to it thanks to the larger situation, and unfortunately, Kenny was getting the first hint of it.
His hands shot up in innocence. “Actually, no. Your beloved brother is dropping me off coffee because I won a bet.”
I didn’t have time to delve into whatever that was, but I made a mental note to follow up later. “Tell him hi,” I said and kept moving up the stairs and inside, where I found a visibly fuming Jess and a brooding Beast with Wilder and Bruce deliberating something.
Their attention shifted to me.
“My office,” Wilder said, and I followed him and Bruce down the hall.
“You guys need me?” Jess asked, clearly alert to an immediate situation looming.
I was shaking my head, but Bruce answered for me. “No, Jess. Not this time.” Then he shut the door and leaned against it while I took a seat and Wilder sat behind his desk.
I’d made clear this was confidential, so I didn’t need to preface the conversation with any warnings. “Jo is an author—pen name Josie Wade.”
That settled in, both of them recognizing the name since the women in their world loved her books.
“She has someone who’s been rather persistent at sending her fan mail, and we’re pretty sure it just escalated.” I quickly briefed them on the situation as far as I knew it and my current plans—first, a visit to Bloom. Second, a trip to the post office to collect anything new, and third, a visit to the police with Jo.
“Good plan. If we get a name, we can make sure to have more information. I’m not sure if they can do much since he technically hasn’t threatened her and there’s no name yet,” Bruce said, mind clearly running through the details, combing for anything useful.
“He hasn’t threatened to hurt her, but he’s… indicated other interests.” My jaw flexed and I laid out a few of the things I’d seen in the letters she’d kept. If those were the ones she could stomach, I worried what we’d find in anything he’d sent recently.
Wilder swore. “Get to Bloom. Dahlia will do whatever she can to help, and maybe John can write up a cease and desist to send out. If this guy already knows she lives here, there’s no harm in it coming from someone local. That gives us more clarity for the cops to show she’s asked him to stop and he’s not doing it, assuming he ignores it.”
I nodded, glad he’d mentioned John Wallace, Dahlia’s husband. He was a good man, and though he didn’t practice law for his day job, he still did pro bono and some specialty work alongside his brother and father’s firm. Anything we could do to keep this creep from making further overtures toward her was good with me.
“How is she?” Bruce asked, and I heard the echo in his words. How are you?
“She’s shaken up. Embarrassed she kept this a secret but also just scared. Upset. But I think she’s hopeful we can get this shut down before it’s anything more. I’m not talking to her about stuff we’ve seen…” I glanced at Wilder.
A little over a year ago, Wilder had found his now-wife and her good friend held at gunpoint thanks to a deranged stalker who’d come after Sarah’s friend Madeline Reynolds while Saint Security had been tasked with protecting her. Sarah had worked at Saint. In the end, the leak in security had come from inside the client’s house, so to speak, and the Saint team had learned a lot about handling stalker threats. That said, each case could be a superspecial little snowflake, and we needed to take this one as such.
“Hit Bloom in ten when it opens, and from there, we’re with you. Say the word and you’ve got the Saint resources, no questions asked. If anyone gets nosy, send them to me.”
Bruce was a handsome devil, but when he got that focused look, the one that said he wasn’t going to let anyone harm someone, much less a woman who mattered to him and who I—well, who mattered to me a great deal, too—God help the person who stood in his way.
When I left Wilder’s office, the hallway had cleared of the thick enmity between Jess and Beast, likely because their moderators had disappeared into a meeting with me. Kenny had left his post on the stairs, which freed me to speed walk toward Silver Street without interference.
The soft breeze and wildflowers blooming just past our building should’ve been beautiful. I should’ve been walking on clouds today after spending the night holding Jo, but there’d been very little romance about it. A sweet kiss to say goodnight with her under her comforter and me next to her on top of it and nothing else, because any physical pleasure between us wasn’t going to come in a time of crisis. It wasn’t right, and it certainly didn’t adhere to the go-slowly plan.
Sharing a bed at all wasn’t exactly slow, and yet leaving her hadn’t been an option. She was scared and upset, and though it seemed unlikely she was actually in danger at the moment, I couldn’t have walked out of there for all the money in the world.
The need to protect her rose up so strongly, my steps turned into a light jog. I wasn’t panicking about this, but the impulse to torch the earth until I found this guy and put him in jail had never occurred to me until last night when I’d seen so much fear in her eyes, I could taste it.
I’d never experienced anything like this—this burning for her and for her protection and safety and happiness and ability to do what she wanted and share herself and her work with the world however she chose. This threat to so many of those things had me feeling practically feral.
When I walked past the bookstore, I saw her unloading a box of books, and thankfully, Darcy had also planned to be in the store. Was it too much to believe she needed me patrolling outside of her workplace right now?
Yes, yes it was. But I felt the pull toward her, even still. Thankfully, Bloom was just a few doors down, and they opened early, bless them. I calmed my mind the way I’d learned to do years ago before a mission and focused on the outcomes I needed before entering the store.
“Hey—oh, hi,” the woman behind the desk said. “How can I help you today?”
I didn’t know her, but that didn’t mean Dahlia wasn’t in. “Is the owner here?”
She flushed and seemed to panic a little. “Uh, she is, but I’m wondering if there’s something I could help you with? She’s dealing with?—”
“I’m sorry but I really need to speak with her. Can you get her, please?” I didn’t want to push, but I needed these questions answered discreetly.
“Give me one minute,” she said, a thin smile on her face.
She slipped into the back room, and I wandered the space. Dahlia had created a shop that felt at once homey and like something out of a fairy tale. Rich jewel tones on the walls and bright pops of green and color everywhere through arrangements and some strategically chosen home décor and garden décor items. It really was incredibly charming.
The timing was all wrong, but I wondered what kind of flowers Jo liked best. She wouldn’t like anything fussy, but I didn’t imagine her going for a simple rose or daisy either. I’d have to find out so that when all this settled down and the negative memories of having flowers delivered faded, maybe I could send her some of her favorites.
“Adam? Everything okay?” Dahlia Wallace smiled kindly at me, her dark hair pulled out of her face and an apron covering her clothes, with various tools of the florist trade stuck in the large front pocket.
“Actually, no. Mind if we speak privately?” I asked as quietly as I could.
“Maryanne is in the back, if this works.” She stepped to the front door and flipped the sign hanging there to closed.
“I need information about a delivery Jo Malcom received yesterday.” I showed her a photo I’d taken of the bouquet. “The arrangement was left at her building’s door, not her apartment, though she was home all morning, so if someone rang up, she would’ve answered. There was no card.”
She raised a brow. “Hard to believe anyone could compete with you.”
I forced a smile but shook my head. “Not the concern. It’s potentially a more dangerous situation than that. I need to know who ordered the flowers and what the delivery instructions were.”
It’d occurred to me that maybe, maybe, Dahlia had delivered them as a courtesy rather than the stalker listing Jo’s address. This would still be concerning but possibly a good sign.
Dahlia moved to the check-out counter and tapped on the iPad she had set up. “I wasn’t the person who took the order. We’re not actually even open to customers on Sunday, so I’m wondering if maybe they ordered them earlier in the week since we do deliveries that day.”
She squinted at the screen, skimming through information. “The order for that bouquet was placed on Saturday morning, and the person picked them up that afternoon. Paid in cash. No delivery request.”
The ambient noises of the shop—the whir of the refrigerated flower cases to the left and right of the register, the light music playing over the speaker, the sound of someone clipping the ends of flowers in the other room—they all blurred into a silence that hit me so suddenly it felt violent.
Paid in cash. Picked them up that afternoon.
“No name? No credit card?”
Dahlia’s dark eyes were big. “No, sorry. We normally would take one, but they only have the description of the bouquet they wanted here, not the name of the person ordering…”
“Anything else you can tell me? Any requests the person made? Any description of the person?”
Dahlia’s finger slid down the screen. “Not that I can see, but Mandy took the order. She’s off today, but I can call her and ask if she remembers the person.”
I was already moving toward the door after slapping my card onto the counter. “Please do. If she can come in or call me to tell me herself, it’d be a big help. Call me with anything you find, and I’ll check back this afternoon if I haven’t heard. If you can send us any security footage from your cameras, I’d appreciate it.”
“Okay. Will do. Sorry!”
I didn’t tell her she had nothing to apologize for—she didn’t. I couldn’t blame her or her employee for accepting cash or not insisting on the person’s name—there was really no reason to be alarmed by that.
What she’d just told me had my heart thundering as I jogged next door to All Booked Up, firing off a text to Wilder and Bruce while at it. I stopped shy of flinging the door open and demanding Jo come with me right this instant. Instead, I took a moment, eyeing the people milling around the street and willing my pulse to slow so I wouldn’t burst in there and terrify her.
My training was kicking in, but I still felt the tremor of genuine fear and something like rage creeping in.
He knew where she lived, and undoubtedly where she worked.
And it would only be a matter of time before he decided he wanted to see her face-to-face—if he hadn’t already.
Because unless he’d paid someone to do the job for him, Jo’s stalker was here in Silverton.