Page 9 of The Agent
After running her routine Sunday errands while trying not to think about the brush of Tully’s fingers against her cheek, Natalie tromped up the stone steps of her front porch with a couple of plastic bags in her hand. A flash of white tucked under the doormat caught her eye—probably a flyer for window replacement or a cleaning service. She bent and yanked the paper out from under the mat, unlocked the door, and went inside.
When she got to the kitchen, she set the bags down and flipped the paper open to find two lines typed on it:
Beauty is only skin deep. What’s underneath your skin?
The muscles in her throat tightened. She dropped the paper on the counter as though it were a snake rattling its tail.
It had to be from the same person who had sent her an email every day since Tuesday. They were all on the theme of beauty, which she had assumed was a reference to her hair salon. She had tried not to think about them since she didn’t want a shadow hanging over her pleasure in Alice and Derek’s wedding, but the messages were seared into her brain.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. No one sees beauty in you.
Pretty is as pretty does. What you do is ugly.
Beauty is power. But who has the power now?
A thing of beauty is a joy forever but you won’t be around that long.
She had deleted the first email without paying much attention to it, assuming it had some kind of malware attached, although there was no apparent link to click on.
The second one made her stop and check the sender’s address but it was not one she recognized.
The third email made her go back and dig the other two out of the deleted list so she could see if they were from the same address. They were not, which made her nervous. Whoever was sending them was hiding their identity.
When the fourth one arrived—on the morning of the rehearsal dinner—her stomach had knotted. The short message with no greeting, no closing, and no recognizable source radiated menace. That was when she’d checked all the locks on the windows in her house and called a locksmith to upgrade the locks on the hair salon’s front and back doors, something she’d meant to do for years.
She had considered calling the police, but Natalie knew from experience how little they could do when a threat was not immediate and clear. At the salon she’d heard far too many stories of how useless restraining orders were against ex-boyfriends and ex-husbands.
Furthermore, how could she convince the police that a few sayings about beauty constituted a danger to her? The anonymity and frequency were sinister but the threat was only implied.
Now that she thought about it, she hadn’t gotten a message on Alice’s wedding day. Someone had known she wouldn’t be checking her email that day. She braced her hands on the counter, closed her eyes, and concentrated on breathing in and out slowly as fear turned her knees to jelly.
The ice maker in her fridge dumped new cubes with a muffled clatter. Her knees functioned just well enough for her to jump sideways while her heart tried to wrench itself out of her chest.
She had to do something, or she would be a basket case before it got dark. After that, she wouldn’t be able to sleep. In the old days, she would have spent the night at Dawn’s apartment, but her friend had moved into Leland’s penthouse in the city.
She looked down at the sheet of paper with its words that weren’t quite a threat but sent claws of terror ripping through her.
Maybe the chief of police would believe her. After all, his wife came to the Mane Attraction every week for a mani-pedi. But what could he do? Send a patrol car by every hour?
She needed someone who could help her figure out how to stop the messages because she couldn’t live in fear every time the ice maker did its job.
And she knew who that someone was.
Tully shoved the rolling chair back from his desk and walked over to the wall of windows that faced the Hudson River. A tugboat wrestled a barge upriver against the swift current while a couple of graceful white sailboats tacked back and forth behind it.
He’d knocked off a couple of proposals and modified the antikidnapping training program for the Hazeltons to include protecting their three golden retrievers. A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. The changes had been a pain to work in, but how could he fault the family for worrying about their beloved pets?
However, he still had more to do than he had expected because his mind kept drifting away to the electric charge of having Natalie in his arms when they’d danced. And her nipples under that flimsy white T-shirt she’d had on this morning.
His cell phone vibrated on his desk, making him turn away from the view to pick it up. He glanced at the caller ID.
Natalie.
Anticipation shot through his veins. Maybe she’d changed her mind about what sizzled between them. “Hey, Nat. Are the security bars giving you trouble already?” he joked.
“No ... no, they’re fine. Something’s happened. I need your help.” He could hear panic making her voice tremble.
“Are you in immediate danger?” His tone was harsh but he had to know how bad the situation was.
