Page 56 of The Agent
“He threw blood all over your front door.”
“You mean red paint?”
“No, I mean blood. You can buy it from a butcher.” He took her hand. “Let’s get you out of here. I’ll have one of my people clean it up after they take photos and samples.”
Maybe he was right that she shouldn’t see what her door looked like. She might never be able to walk through it again with a quiet mind.
“Nat,” he said, interlacing their fingers so that his hand enveloped hers. “This is a major escalation. You can’t stay here tonight.”
“I agree.”
“Thank God! I thought you were going to argue with me.” The tension in his jaw relaxed a fraction.
“I’m smart enough to know when you’re right.”
“That’s one of the things I like about you,” he said with a flash of a tight-lipped smile.
She huffed out a laugh and reached into her car for her purse and laptop bag. “Wait, why didn’t Pam see something on the surveillance camera?” she asked as Tully took the laptop from her. “She had the video feed going to her cell phone.”
“The UPS man had to be a fake,” Tully said, his voice a growl. “He found a way to fool your front door camera. I should have replaced it with one of mine. They’re a lot harder to mess with.”
He held the door for her while she slid onto the luxurious leather seat of Tully’s fancy sports car.
As Tully folded his big body into the driver’s seat, another thought struck her. “He didn’t want me to be home when he left his message, did he? That’s why he cruised past the salon several times. To make sure my car was there in the parking lot.”
Somehow it made her feel better that her stalker was avoiding her. She shuddered. Thank God she hadn’t been home when the stalker splashed blood over her front door.
However, when she looked at Tully, the stern set of his profile wasn’t reassuring. He backed out of the driveway and headed down the road before he said, “He’s still hiding his identity.” Then he bared his teeth in a smile that was downright feral. “But we’ve got the license plate number, thanks to Deion. We’ll nail him with that.”
“Do you think Dobs is doing this?” She couldn’t picture the sobbing wreck of a man stabbing a knife in her door before splashing it with blood. But didn’t the neighbors always say that the psychopath next door seemed like a nice person, just a little quiet?
“Yeah, I do,” Tully said, his hands flexing on the leather-wrapped steering wheel. “Except he wouldn’t do it himself. That’s beneath him. He’d send his minions. That’s who was cruising past the salon. Minions make mistakes because they’ve got less skin in the game.”
“But why? He couldn’t have known that I helped Regina.” She was so careful, and Regina hadn’t spoken to him since she packed her bag and left.
“My guess is that he had her watched. He’s the type who would.” Tully turned onto the highway, the car accelerating with a potent roar that Natalie would have enjoyed if she hadn’t been so worried.
Natalie’s stomach lurched at how close Regina had come to being caught by her abusive husband. “I’m so glad she’s safe now.”
“We have to keep her that way.”
“What do you mean? As long as she’s at Dawn and Leland’s, she’ll be fine, won’t she?” Even Dobs—with all his wealth—couldn’t drag his wife out of Leland’s penthouse.
“The legal stuff may get complicated,” Tully said. “You’re meeting with Regina and the divorce lawyer tomorrow. See what he says.”
Regina had asked Natalie to be there for support during the initial consultation. She’d said she wasn’t sure her brain was functioning properly between her pregnancy and her fear.
Natalie understood. She’d gone through the divorce with only her lawyer to advise her. The woman had been smart and tough, but she had always told Natalie that the final decisions about what she wanted to fight for were up to her. Sometimes Natalie’s emotions were so knotted up that she had no idea what the right answer was. So Natalie had cleared her schedule for the morning.
“And now I don’t have to deal with Lincoln Tunnel traffic during rush hour,” she said with a wry smile.
Tully threw her an approving glance. “That’s right. Don’t let the bastard get you down.”
“But what if it isn’t Dobs? What if it’s some random stranger? Or someone I know who’s doing this for an entirely different reason?” She would have two problems on her hands.
“I don’t believe in coincidence.” Tully’s tone was hard. “I’ll bet my favorite boots that the license plate will tie back to Van Houten somehow.”
“How fast will you know?”
