Chapter Twelve
For the first time since he and his brothers had opened San Antonio Security nearly five years ago, Chance didn’t really want to be here in the office.
He’d left Maci curled up in bed and hadn’t wanted to leave this morning. She hadn’t wanted to let him go either, but he was pretty sure it was more because she wanted to get back to work than because she would miss him.
Promising to bring home dinner from her favorite Italian restaurant if she took the day off to rest had finally worked. She’d agreed, though she’d glared when he suggested spending the day in bed napping.
He chuckled. Maci wasn’t someone who enjoyed a lot of idle time. The food bribe had worked today, but he had no doubt it wouldn’t work for long. Especially since she felt guilty that he was going out of his way to get it.
He didn’t mind. He liked taking care of her. Wanted to take care of her. Wanted to make up for lost time when he hadn’t taken care of her.
Chance had spent the morning holed up in his office, mostly because he needed to catch up on the intel his brothers had been gathering while he’d been gone. He read about Bert and Ernie—real names Daniel Neweth and Miles Dary—although official questioning of them hadn’t led to much more info than what they’d said the first night. Someone had paid them; they didn’t know who nor had they seen a face.
Dead end.
He also spent time writing up the report for Maci’s attack and the car chase. He forced himself to tamp down the terror that still wanted to overwhelm him just at the thought of finding her lying so still on the floor. And that was before he’d known she was pregnant. He got the report done and sent it out.
But the real reason he was hiding in his office was because he knew his brothers were waiting to pounce. They wanted the details about Maci and the baby.
He couldn’t avoid the talk forever, but he could avoid it for now. They were scheduled to meet Nicholas LeBlanc today for an update.
By the time Chance came out of his office, it was past lunch and time to leave for the meeting.
“He lives!” Luke joked, but slid him a travel mug of coffee and a deli sandwich. “Thought we were going to have to smoke you out to get you in the car.”
“Just trying to get caught up on everything. Especially paperwork.”
Luke’s pronounced shudder at the word made Chance laugh into his cup. Coffee in hand, the pair found their way to the SUV out front where Brax and Weston were already sitting.
“So, Maci...” Brax said as he drove. “She feeling better?”
Chance hoped this wasn’t the start of the inquisition. “No residual issues from the attack. She’s feeling tired and sick, but said it’s just normal pregnancy stuff.”
He took a sip of his coffee and made a note on his phone to pick up a pregnancy book or two. “I promised to grab food on the way home if she’d just stay home and rest.”
Home . He’d let himself drift off to the idea of walking through his door after a long day and finding her in his house more than once. It was almost too much for Chance, especially when he’d woken up that morning with her hair on his pillow and the utter certainty that she belonged there. With him and their baby. Always.
“Good. Let’s get this meeting over with quickly,” Weston said. “The sooner we finish this, the sooner you can get home. No one wants to make a pregnant woman wait.”
His brothers let it go with that—no further questions. Chance shouldn’t have been surprised. They wouldn’t push if he wasn’t ready to talk. Especially when they needed to be focused on the case at hand.
They parked at VanPoint Tower and headed up to Nicholas LeBlanc’s office, finding him with both Dorian Cane and Rich Carlisle.
Chance tried to hide his distaste for Rich as best as he could, but all he could see was the other man’s hands on his Maci. It left a sour taste in his mouth.
LeBlanc shook everyone’s hands, despite the obvious tension surrounding him. “Dorian let me know about your teammate’s injury. The woman who was impersonating Stella. Will she be alright?”
“She’s recovering, but we won’t be using that style mission anymore.” There was no way in hell Chance was allowing that. “Her cover was blown anyway, so it’s a moot point.”
“That’s a shame.” Rich’s charming smirk covered his face, as always. “I enjoyed spending time with her. She’s feisty.”
Chance’s hands clenched into fists at his side. It was only Weston’s hand squeezing his shoulder that helped him remain focused rather than leap across the room and knock the smirk off Rich’s face.
Dorian stepped forward. “Did the teenagers who were paid to get you to chase them provide any usable intel?”
The idea that teenagers had been paid to send grown men on a car chase throughout the city didn’t sit well with any of them. What if they’d crashed? What if they’d hurt someone?
“Nothing.” Luke shook his head. “No phone number or contact information for the person who paid them. They never saw his face.”
“We have contacts with the San Antonio PD so we called it in with them,” Weston continued. “Kids were brought to the station, but they ultimately were only held for driving under the influence.”
While his brothers talked, Chance kept his eye on Rich. Chance’s dislike was definitely personal, but it was also more than that. Something about the man was beeping all over Chance’s threat radar.
Rich’s background check had come back clear when they’d run it, but something still felt off.
“How much did the guy pay them?” Dorian asked.
Weston shrugged. “Enough to get high a few times. That’s all they cared about.”
“So, you have an injured employee, we have two teenagers who are useless for providing info, and we are still no closer to finding Stella’s stalker,” Nicholas said.
Chance grit his teeth. The other man was correct in his summary of the situation. “Yes. Using a decoy isn’t going to work anymore. Before knocking Maci unconscious, he told her he knew she wasn’t Stella. We don’t know when or how he figured it out.”
“We know he knew where all the security cameras were in your daughter’s apartment,” Brax said. “He took out the one in the elevator completely and was able to avoid the hall and lobby cameras.”
“Even the ones we set up in secret?” Dorian asked.
Chance nodded. “Guy kept his head tucked down and face averted for everything. Avoided the cameras but didn’t seem to know where they were specifically beyond the elevator. Doorman didn’t see anyone, so he came in through the service door.”
Dorian looked as frustrated as all of them felt. It was like the stalker was always one step ahead of them.
And even worse, he was starting to escalate. No more letters and two violent instances in a row. When stalkers changed their MOs so abruptly, it could spell disaster for the object of their obsession.
“Stella isn’t happy about keeping out of the limelight this long,” LeBlanc said.
Brax quickly shook his head. “Coming back now could be the worst thing she could do. The stalker obviously doesn’t know where she really is because there’s been no attempts on her in Europe.”
The rest of them, including Dorian, were quick to agree.
“Mr. LeBlanc, we’re still committed to solving this case,” Chance said. “Doubly so, now that the stalker hurt one of our own.”
LeBlanc rubbed the back of his neck. “What’s the next step then?”
“We’d like to look through the footage for the last few months of events to see if there are any guests or patterns that we can discern. We’ll need a full accounting of Stella’s schedule to match up the times she got the stalker’s letters we’ve already got at the office.”
“Full staff list too,” Weston said.
Rich shifted slightly in his seat. He looked uncomfortable. Was he nervous? Bored? Hungover from going out last night? All were possibilities.
“We’ve got all the security footage already. I’ll get that for you,” Dorian said. “I’ll make sure to include who was guarding Stella and her apartment as well.”
Chance nodded, glad the other man wasn’t offended by them wanting to double-check his work. “If we continue to work together, we’ll catch this guy. Everybody makes a mistake at some point. We’ll figure out a way to hurry that along.”
Not long after, with the meeting over and a plan in place, the Patterson brothers headed home. No one spoke until they were pulling away from the building.
“Rich didn’t like that we’re investigating the past,” Weston said.
Chance tapped his fingers on the seat next to him. “No, he didn’t. He especially didn’t like that we’re going to have full access to the staff list.”
“Could he be the perp?” Luke asked.
Chance shrugged. “It wouldn’t make much sense. He’s had unfettered access to Stella for years. Why start being a pseudo stalker at this point?”
His brothers all murmured their agreement.
“Who wants to bet money we’re going to find him doing something shady on the footage?” Luke asked.
No one was dumb enough to take that bet.
“For now, let’s just focus on the plan,” Chance said. “We look through the footage and dig through employees and people closest to Stella. We look again at the people who message her or follow her obsessively on social media. I think whoever it is has to be someone close.”
“Why do you say that?” Weston asked.
“They know too much to just be watching. This feels like intimate knowledge.”
“They could have a mole in the staff,” Luke suggested, writing the idea down on his phone’s notepad for later.
They all let out a groan.
“Don’t say that,” Brax muttered. “That’ll make our lives indefinitely harder.”
Chance scrubbed a hand down his face. “We have to consider the possibility.”
A mole would have enough knowledge to evade them for a long time, and all he wanted to do was clear this case up and concentrate on Maci. He didn’t have time for chaotic stalkers when he had a baby on the way.
They made it back to the office and everyone started to pack up for the day. Funny how Chance wasn’t even tempted to try to talk his brothers into staying late and working.
Having someone at home waiting made all the difference.
“I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”
Brax stopped him with a hand at his chest, pushing him back toward the office kitchen. “We’ve cut you some slack with the questions of what exactly is going on between you and our beloved office manager.”
Luke smiled. “But there’s no way in hell we’re leaving here without a toast to our new niece or nephew.”
Weston wagged his dark eyebrows. “And to you becoming a father, ready or not.”
Luke pulled out a bottle of whiskey—the expensive one they used very rarely. “This is usually for celebrating big wins. I think Chance becoming a daddy is the biggest win of all.”
With a grin at Chance, he poured them each a drink, and all four of them lifted the glasses in a toast.
“Chance,” Brax started, “fatherhood is the wildest ride with the most amazing reward.” He was the only one of them able to speak of fatherhood with intimate knowledge. “I know you’re going to ace it.”
Weston clapped him on the back. “You’ve been fathering everyone around you since we all became Pattersons. Probably did it before that too. That’s how we know you’re going to be so good at it. You’ve got a lifetime of practice.”
Luke held his glass up and they all joined. “Congratulations on becoming a dad and making us all uncles again. To fatherhood!”
“To fatherhood!” They clinked their glasses and sipped.
Once again it hit him. He was going to be a dad. Maci was having his baby.
“So, Maci, huh?” Luke waggled his eyebrows, making Chance laugh.
“Yeah. It was...unexpected.”
That really made his brothers laugh.
“Only to you,” Brax said, shaking his head. “It was plain as day to anyone else with working eyeballs, despite the hostility you both threw. Tessa and I had a bet on when you’d get together.”
Though he was curious, Chance decided he didn’t need to know who won in the end.
Brax nodded. “You and Maci aren’t a surprise. It was inevitable.”
“Maybe,” Chance conceded.
“So, are you two together now?” Luke asked. “Should we add another place for family dinner this week?”
“We’ll see about dinner. Depends on how she’s feeling.” He finished the last of his whiskey. “And no, to us being together. At least, I don’t think so.”
Luke’s eyes sharpened on Chance’s face. “You can still be part of the child’s life without being romantically involved with Maci. Do you want to be together?”
“I do.” The answer was immediate. Chance knew months ago he wanted her as more than whatever they were. She’d just run before he could admit it. “Maci is... Well, you know her. She’s great. She’s funny and smart as a whip. I love how she keeps me—keeps all of us—on our toes. I like how easy it is to rile her up and that she can throw back whatever I dish up. We just fit.”
“Have you told her that?” Weston asked.
He let out a sigh. “No. She’s skittish. It feels like she’s two seconds away from bolting at any given moment.” Like she’d done the first time.
“I’m no expert on relationships or women, but why don’t you start by telling her that? Maybe it’ll help, let her put down some roots. It’s hard to be real with someone when they aren’t sure where you stand.”
Chance knew Luke was right, he just didn’t know how to tell her.
There was something fragile about Maci, despite her prickly exterior. She could argue and fight with him all day, but something still made him want to protect her even from herself.
“You’re probably right,” Chance admitted. “But for now, I’ve got dinner to pick up.”
He headed out of the office, already looking forward to getting home to his girl, whether she knew she was his or not.