Chapter Four
Luke
I take the roses down to the security team’s main room on the ground floor of the Ashford offices. Rick’s sitting at the main desk, surrounded by a dozen screens with images of the building, as well as Aurelia’s apartment building.
He holds his hands up as I approach. “I’m really sorry. I’d just come back from a bathroom visit. Kai was handing over, and the delivery guy slipped through.”
“It’s okay, I got to them before she did.” I put the roses on the desk. “She thinks they’re from Dominic.” I take a pair of plastic gloves from the box on his desk and remove the small envelope from my pocket.
He glances at her name on the front. “Looks like the same typeface as the others.”
“Yeah.” I take a photo of the envelope with my phone for my files, then extract the card.
We both look at it. It just says, in the same typeface, Love the butterfly earrings.
I go cold inside. She’s wearing butterflies today. He was either at her apartment, or at the studio.
“Fuck,” Rick says.
“Yeah.” Fury sweeps through me. It could have been the guy at the water cooler, but equally we’ve passed lots of men today, any of whom could easily have spotted what earrings she was wearing without me suspecting them.
I slide both the card and the envelope into a plastic bag and hand it to him. “Can you get Theo to check for fingerprints?”
“Yes, sir.” We both know the only ones he’ll find are mine from when I quickly pocketed the card and the delivery guy’s.
“Do you think she’s likely to mention the flowers to Dominic?” Rick asks.
She’s not talking to him at the moment, but he sent her a message, asking to meet her. If she thinks he’s upping the game by sending her flowers, it’s possible she’ll finally contact him. “We’ll worry about that if it happens. I’ll take a look at yesterday’s report now.”
“Yes, of course.” It’s waiting in his in-tray, and he passes it to me.
I help myself to a cup of the brewed coffee from the jug, even though it’s strong enough to make me wince, and choose an apricot muffin from the plate.
I take them to a free desk and peruse the report.
It’s seven pages long, and includes a detailed analysis of the seventeen messages we intercepted and deleted, the four new social media accounts we blocked, and a summary of two gifts she’s received.
I check the information on the gifts first. There are photos of both of them.
One was another bouquet of flowers—mixed blooms, on this occasion, smaller than today’s.
The other gift was a box of chocolates, wrapped in silver paper, with a red bow tied around them.
We intercepted and removed both gifts before she saw them.
Both of them came with cards, also in envelopes, and the report includes photos of these.
All the cards on the gifts she’s been sent in the past few months have been printed, so we can’t analyze the handwriting.
We’ve intercepted the delivery person a few times, and always get directed to a different florist, who then reveals that the customer paid cash.
One remembers a tall, dark man—possibly—which doesn’t really narrow it down.
On each occasion, he’s given a fake name, and the trail runs cold.
The emails sent to her inbox yesterday are all variations on a theme.
Several refer to the gifts, asking what she thought of them.
A couple mention how nice she looked in the dress with the polka dots.
I check her Instagram account, and realize she posted a selfie in that dress, so he could have just seen that.
But then I turn the page and see the message that Rick has highlighted.
It included a photo of Aurelia wearing the dress, but it’s not a carefully framed selfie.
It was taken from a distance, probably with a DSLR camera paired with a telephoto lens, and shows her playing badminton on the large lawn at her parents’ house.
She’s in the middle of lunging to meet the shuttlecock, and her skirt has flipped up in the breeze. The message just says, ‘Nice legs!’
I feel a bit queasy. Rick’s already told me about it, but it’s another thing to see it for myself. Someone was watching the Ashfords’ house. Spying on her.
It’s just one of many, many messages the team has intercepted over the past few months.
They’re not violent. No death threats, or anything threatening harm to her.
So far, none of the photos have been overly intimate—nothing of her in her underwear, or anything like that.
But they’re still creepy and inappropriate.
When Marcus first asked me to come on board as her CPO, he explained that it was going to be a difficult job because Edward and Cece Ashford wanted Aurelia to be kept out of the loop.
When I frowned, he then admitted that he and Caesar disagreed with their decision, but their parents were worried it would inhibit Aurelia’s natural effusiveness and carefree personality, and in the end they’d agreed to go along with it.
I can see their point. But I hate the fact that I’m helping to keep it a secret from her. It’s not my place to question that decision, though. I can only do my job, and hope that if I do it well enough, we’ll be able to catch the guy, and she’ll never have to know how much danger she was in.
Every day on Instagram, she receives a handful of comments from newly created profiles. These are in the same vein as the emails and other messages, asking whether she liked the gifts he’s sent, or commenting on what she’s wearing.
When a woman has a stalker, it’s usually someone who knows her, and an ex is going to be at the top of the list. We’ve watched Dominic Blackthorne carefully over the past few months. But the truth is that we don’t really have anything to link him to these messages or gifts.
He likes and comments on her Instagram posts under his own profile, just the occasional joke that she then likes with a heart or laughing emoji.
Of course it’s possible he does this and also posts the others anonymously.
I’m not going to jump to any conclusions.
But instinct tells me he’s not our mystery man.
“Principal’s on the move,” Rick announces from the desk.
I leap to my feet and go over to the camera we’ve installed in the reception area on her floor. She’s leaving the boardroom and heading for the elevators.
“Shit.” I toss my coffee cup and the other half of the muffin in the trash and hand Rick back the report. “Catch you later.”
“Good luck.” He chuckles, obviously knowing from experience that she’s going to make a run for it.
I jog out of the office and across the foyer, and punch the button for the elevator. It takes ages to arrive, and in the end I take the stairs, running down them two at a time until I exit into the underground car park.
Just in time to see the Range Rover heading out.
“Goddammit.” She must have a spare set of keys.
I cross to my own car, a black Skoda Kodiaq, understated and practical. I leap in and clip my button onto the seat belt, start the car, and head out. “Location?” I bark.
“She’s heading west on Shortland Street toward Queen Street,” Rick says.
I signal left and turn, seeing her heading for the traffic lights.
I stay a few cars back, using Rick’s directions if I lose sight of her, and follow her across the city to Parnell.
This is where her apartment is, so she could be going home.
Equally, I know she often meets her best friend, Gracie, for lunch.
It wasn’t in her calendar, but maybe she changed her mind at the last minute. Possibly on purpose to wind me up.
She pulls into a parking space close to an Italian restaurant that I know is one of her favorites. I park nearby, get out, then jog across the road to catch her before she goes in.
As I move in front of her, she looks up, startled. “What the fuck!” She glares at me. Even though she’s only five-four in her heels, she pokes me in the chest as if she’s an MMA fighter fronting me up. “Leave. Me. Alone.”
I ignore her. “Please stay here, ma’am, while I check the restaurant.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, this is so embarrassing.”
“Language,” I say, and I leave her there with an open mouth as I go into the restaurant.
Thirty seconds later, I come back out. “All clear, ma’am.”
“I know it’s fucking all clear. Wait,” she snaps as I go to follow her, “you’re not coming in with me.”
“I promise I’ll sit at another table.”
She inhales. Looks up at me. Clearly sees I’m serious.
She exhales slowly. “Whatever. I’m not buying you lunch, though.” She turns and walks into the building.
Sighing, I follow her in.
She joins a pretty blonde I recognize from the file as Gracie sitting at a table by the window. Twenty seconds later, Gracie looks across at me, her lips curving up. Aurelia looks at me too, and they both wave. I look away, scowling as they laugh.
They then pointedly ignore me for the next ninety minutes.
It’s a busy restaurant, fully booked and with no spare tables, so I take a stool up at the bar and order a small pizza, which I eat while I keep one eye on my surroundings. I’m mostly out of earshot of the girls, but from time to time snippets of their conversation drift over to me.
At one point, I hear Dominic’s name mentioned.
I glance over at them. I can’t quite hear what they’re saying now, but I can lip-read a little.
“Tomorrow,” Aurelia’s saying. Gracie says something, and Aurelia replies with something that looks like, “Tarāpunga.” It’s Māori for seagull, but it’s also the name of a café on the waterfront.
Shit. Is she going to meet him? Goddammit. She’s going to mention the flowers. How am I going to deal with that?
When they finally finish lunch, they pay and head outside. I follow and stand a few feet away while they exchange a hug.
Gracie gives me an amused look. “He watches you like a hawk,” she says, not bothering to lower her voice.
“I know. I can feel his eyes boring into me like lasers.”
Gracie looks me up and down. “He’s kinda cute,” she murmurs.