Page 9 of Last Resort

They were alone here in the office. Chance was always early. Nobody else would be here for at least another forty-five minutes.

She took a step toward him as if she was being pulled by a string.

“Chance?” she whispered.

He took a step toward her also.

She shouldn’t do this—shouldn’t let the moment build between them. But she was powerless to stop it. Powerless to resist those eyes. That jaw. Those cheekbones.

The man.

They both took another step, but then Chance blinked and stopped. He stiffened, backing away from her.

The moment was lost.

“Good morning,” he said. Then without another word, he turned and walked to his office, closing the door behind him.

Chapter Three

In all her time of working for them, Maci had never seen the Patterson brothers as flustered as they were working the LeBlanc case.

After their meeting with Nicholas LeBlanc, they’d camped out at the conference room table with the case notes from the tycoon’s head of security. Dorian Cane and his team had collected all the stalker’s letters and gifts as evidence, storing them carefully since LeBlanc hadn’t wanted to bring in law enforcement. That meant one wall of the San Antonio Security conference room was now piled high with boxes of letters, notes and printed photographs, plus the reports to go along with everything.

Three days and too many pots of coffee later, they were all frustrated, exhausted and no closer to having any leads on the stalker or any clue how to keep Stella LeBlanc safe. Every day that they didn’t have a plan, Chance became more stressed, the furrow between his brows more pronounced.

It’d only gotten worse when another of the stalker’s letters found its way into Stella’s mail. Whatever the letter contained was bad enough that Maci thought Chance might put his fist through the wall.

She had no idea why he was taking this so personally—he hadn’t seemed to do that for most of their other cases since she’d worked here. Maybe stalking was a sore subject for him.

And whether Chance was taking this personally or not didn’t matter. All of them needed help, so she’d done what she could. She’d secretly ferried sustenance of all kinds to the brothers in between her own phone calls and office work. Nutritional snacks and meals, since none of them were eating well.

Despite her best efforts to keep them functioning, they all had bags under their eyes the size of Volvos, with attitudes to match. It would have been almost funny if she hadn’t been so exhausted herself.

She’d somehow gotten some sort of stomach bug that wouldn’t quit right when the guys needed her most. She couldn’t take a sick day right now, so she hid it as best she could. She sprayed down everything with disinfectant and powered through.

“He could’ve killed her,” Luke said, rubbing his eyes as he tossed down a stack of photos from the most recent stalker incident. Maci tidied them, then walked around the table, replacing the tray of sandwiches and bringing a fresh pot of coffee.

Chance hit play on the video images. “I don’t think that was the intent. Stella and her driver were followed home from a local boutique she was doing a spotlight on for her YouTube channel.” He paused the video as all the guys studied it. “See how the other car nicked the trunk? He could’ve done a lot more damage.”

“See how the driver keeps his face averted?” Chance pointed to the image. “He knew we’d pull all photo and video footage we could get. It was a carefully constructed hit.”

Chance resumed the footage, and Maci winced as the vehicle containing Stella and her driver went into a tailspin. Thankfully, the guardrail stopped it before there was any major damage.

“This is a break in the pattern,” Chance said. “The first incident of actual violence.”

They all watched the footage again. Then again, sandwiches and coffee ignored.

It was Weston who finally stopped it. “We need a break. Watching this on repeat isn’t changing anything. Dorian has Stella on lockdown. Nothing is going to change tonight.”

Luke stood up. “I concur. I’m heading home to see my wife and get some sleep. Let’s meet back early and tackle this with fresh eyes.”

Maci could tell Chance wanted to argue but knew they were probably right.

“I need to see my tiny terror.” Brax stacked up some files in front of him. “He’s running Tessa ragged.”

It wasn’t long before they were heading out of the conference room.

“You coming, Chance?” Weston asked.

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