24. Salinger
24
SALINGER
“ Y ou never told them.” I cross my arms and regard Mandy at work the next day.
She’s been avoiding me all morning. Finally, she was forced to come into my office to leave the steaming plate of mouthwatering lunch.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She won’t look at me.
“You never told your parents about the stalker.”
“Look, mister, I don’t need you to stomp through my life swinging your dick around so you can feel important.”
“I’m not doing it to feel important—I’m doing it because you’re clearly incapable of looking at this rationally. You are in over your head, Mandy. You need me to save you.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Let’s look at the facts. ”
“It’s my life. I know the facts.” She’s red-faced. “Stop mansplaining my own stalker situation to me. It’s not a big deal.”
“Then why not tell them?”
Mandy scowls at me.
“Fine.” I push away from the desk. “Next Saturday at dinner, I’ll be sure to mention it to your parents. I’m sure they’ll agree that you need to stop being stubborn and let me handle it.”
She grabs my arm, alarmed. “You cannot tell anyone. No one can know. You’re the only person in my life who knows. Promise me.”
I regard her impassively. “No.”
“Bastard.”
“Why do you have such terrible self-preservation skills?” Mindful of the fact that there’s a glass wall on my office, I force my hand down to my side before I can rest it on her waist.
“You saw my dad. He’s already over the edge—he killed off the lawn,” Mandy pleads. “He’s never done that before. Amy and Lauren are making him crazy. Amy moved out of the dorms because she says they’re too stressful for the baby, and she’s back living with my parents. Kenny is over there all the time, and my dad is at his limit.”
Her hands grab at the lapels of my suit jacket. “If Dad hears about the stalker, I don’t know what will happen. He’s already murdered the lawn. Please, Salinger. Just… I’m handling it.”
“No, you aren’t handling it. Tell me who the stalker is, and I will handle it.”
“I’ve seen you handle things. You’d use a machine gun to kill a spider. ”
“No, but I will use a machine gun to kill a stalker.”
“Which is why I’m not telling you.” She glares up at me. “I don’t need you to—”
“What?” I tilt my head. “Protect you? Of course you do.”
“Salinger…” She takes a deep breath and rests her palms flat on my chest. “I appreciate that you want to solve my problem, but I need you to trust me and respect my wishes on this. Thank you.”
Screw the glass wall. I reach out and grab her jaw, tilting her face up to mine.
“You’re being stalked by a violent man, Sweetheart. Fuck respecting your wishes and fuck your boundaries. I’m going to find him and annihilate him.”
As soon as she leaves my office, I call Hudson Wynter.
He picks up on the second ring. “Mr. Svensson, how can I help you?”
“Why are you using your business voice, Hudson?”
I can practically hear him roll his eyes.
“Fuck off, Salinger. I’ve been in a suit sitting in your brothers’ offices for the past six hours talking about foreign espionage with Svensson PharmaTech.”
“Doesn’t that basically amount to ‘don’t plug in a USB drive you find in the parking lot’—”
“And stay away from strip clubs advertising exotic women. Yeah.”
“Well, I have something more interesting for you. My…” Friend? Assistant? Woman I fantasize about? “My acquaintance has a stalker problem, and she won’t fucking tell me who it is, has some sort of independent-woman complex. Like I have time for that shit. I need you to find him. Name, ad dress, schedule, blackmail material, the works. Blank check.”
Hudson quietly hisses through his teeth. “How soon do you need it?”
“Tomorrow.”
“We can’t get it on the schedule for a few weeks.”
“She could be dead by then.”
Hudson is an ice-cold bastard. “So keep her with you until I can get to it. We’re covered up with your brothers’ contracts right now. Garrett’s an asshole, by the way.”
“They made you wear a suit. Drop them, and do this for me. It won’t take you that long.”
“I’ve heard that one before. Fucked up my Christmas holiday, that job did. Those this-will-only-take-a-minute jobs are the ones that turn into a death march to the finish line.”
“I’ll pay whatever you want.”
“Begging’s not a good look on you.”
“Asshole.”
“Prick. We’re too backed up right now. Besides, this sounds like more of a security issue. Why don’t you ask Crawford? That’s more in his wheelhouse.”
“I doubt Crawford will.”
“He’s your brother.” Hudson huffs out a laugh on the other end of the line. “I’m sure he’d help you if you asked nicely. That’s how brothers are.”
“Not my brothers.”
After the call, I pace around my office.
Mandy is sitting at her desk, absently swinging a leg as she edits a memo.
She’s not going to last the week .
Something happening to her would be intolerable. Not because I like or care about her, of course, but because that means I lose. I’m taking it as a personal insult that someone is coming after my assistant.
I can’t let anything happen to her. It’s bad for my reputation. But is she worth the cost? The energy?
It’s just a business transaction , I remind myself as I shrug on my overcoat.
Mandy glances up at me. “You don’t have a meeting.”
“I have one now.” I turn back to Mandy.
“Hm.”
“Mandy, look at me.”
She tears her eyes away from the screen, lips parted. Her tongue darts out to lick the straw of her drink.
Do not think about that tongue on your cock.
“I need you to stay here until I get back.”
“Yeah, okay.” She nods.
“I’m serious.”
Her friend gives me a weird look. I ignore it and sweep past their desks to the elevator. As soon as the doors close, I know, they’re going to start whispering about what I’d just done.
Fitz, red pen in hand, is reviewing an oversized set of floor plans for one of his hotel renovations when I walk into his office.
“Where’s Crawford?” I ask.
“He doesn’t write, he doesn’t call, he storms in making demands.” Fitz twirls the pen. “Hi, Salinger—how are you? I’m doing well, thank you for asking. I heard you had a woman on your island. I’m surprised the gods didn’t smite you for desecrating such a sacred space.”
He is baiting me. I need to let it go, pretend it doesn’t make me absolutely furious.
“How did you know that?”
“Linton told me.”
“I don’t know why I even pay these people.”
“Don’t fire him—I’m in the middle of planning a July Fourth BBQ with him.”
“No. I already told Linton no BBQs, no picnics, no Fourth of July.”
Fitz reaches out to pat my hand, the red pen leaving a line on my pristine white cuff.
I swear.
“You can’t be afraid to get a little messy,” he says. “Change is good. So, who’s the lucky girl? She cute? Where’d you meet?”
At least there is still some discretion among my staff, though I can’t get too mad at Linton. We were friends before he started working with me. “None of your business.”
Fitz jumps up. “Crawford will find out.”
Our half brother is in the hotel’s mission-control room. Windowless and dark, it has a wall of TV screens showing feeds from all the security cameras and a computer screen with a running log of the staff key-card swipes.
Crawford sits on a rolling office chair in front of his laptop, reviewing a report. A slow smile spreads on his scarred face when Fitz and I enter the room.
He leans back in the chair, lacing his hands behind his head. “Dare I see a man come, hat in hand, to ask for a favor from his brother? ”
I bite back a curse. “I need”—I grind my teeth—“your help.”
“He needs my help. Now this, I want to hear. Dazzle me, Salinger.”
I straighten my back. “My assistant is being stalked, and she won’t divulge the name. I’d like for you to identify him and help me neutralize him. Of course, I will pay your usual rates.”
“Well, well, well. And he said this day would never come.”
“Dude…”
“Are we all going to ignore the fact that you took your assistant to your island?” Fitz is incredulous.
“Stop making it weird,” I snap. “Mandy needed a place to stay. I told you, there’s a stalker. It wasn’t a romantic thing.”
“Of course not, you’d never be so crass as to fall in love.” Crawford sneers.
“Crawford,” I bark. “Will you take the job or not?”
“Hmm.” My brother taps his chin. “Will I take this job?”
“I’ll…” I force the words out. “I’ll pay the tithes, of course, as a gesture of goodwill.”
“A gesture of good will,” he repeats. “I’m honored. Unfortunately, I talked it over with the group, and yeah, we actually don’t want your blood money, thanks. Find your own stalker.”
I kick his chair. Hard. He does some kind of judo twist in the air and lands on his feet as the chair crashes to the floor.
“Crawford, you’re seriously not going to help? Mandy could be in trouble!” Fitz demanded .
“I’m seriously not going to help. You don’t get to betray your family then expect a handout when you need one. Get fucked, Salinger.” He flips me off.
Fitz shakes his head, his normally happy demeanor gone, replaced with the type of dark anger more at home coming from me. “Man, this family is full of assholes.”
My mood is dark. “Yeah, that’s why I kept you away from them.”
Mandy’s still at her desk when I return to the office. Pepper seems antsy at her feet.
I’m going to kill Crawford.
No, I’m going to find the stalker, kill him first, then kill Crawford.
Crawford wants to fuck around with Mandy’s safety? Fine. I’ll take care of it myself. I didn’t need the rest of my family then, and I don’t need them now.
Hawthorne: I’ll help you find the bastard.
Faulkner: Fuck Crawford.
McCarthy: Yeah, fuck the East Coast Svenssons.
Whitman: Do you have a picture of him or anything?
Fitz: Can you get in Mandy’s phone?
Mandy hovers outside my office door, Pepper in her arms. She almost knocks but doesn’t, turns, hesitates.
Blowing out a breath, I cross the office in three strides and wrench the sliding-glass door open. “What?”
“Nothing.” There’s apprehension in her brown eyes. “You look busy. ”
I force myself to school my features. “What do you need?”
“It’s just that, well, you said not to leave without you, and Pepper needs to go out.”
“So take her out.” I spread my hands.
Maybe her stalker has been texting her, threatening her. I need access to her phone.
“Did you want to come?” The question is halting.
I stay impassive as I look down on her. “No.”
“But—”
“You said you didn’t want my help, remember? Maybe this will convince you of the danger you’re in.”
She gives me a broken look.
My heart is hard.
As soon as the elevator dings, I rush to my desk and grab a scope out of the drawer.
As if I’m going to throw Mandy to the wolves—or a mangy, feral cat, more like.
From the roof, I watch Mandy exit the building with the dog. By her posture and general demeanor, it’s clear she’s terrified. It’s infuriating that she won’t just let me help her.
Pepper is maddeningly slow as she sniffs around the park on the other side of the street from the Rainier Equity building.
If I’m lucky, her stalker will accost her. I could get a photo of his face, then he would be mine, and Crawford could go fuck himself.
Unfortunately, no creepy men approach her. I don’t even see any man stopping to watch her.
I suddenly wonder if her stalker knows. If he’s watching her all the time, then he probably knows she’s under my protection. Maybe he’s biding his time, waiting until my guard is down.
Her stalker wants to do this the hard way?
Fine.
I am not going to lose.