CELEBRITY STATUS (The Kate Huntington mystery series #4) (21 page)

            “Yeah, but it has a force-of-habit feel to it. She flirts a little, gets clingy when she’s scared. She’s not turning on her full charm, though. I can usually tell when a woman’s seriously interested in me. But there is something else going on. She’s been trying to get me to sign on as her employee, be her full-time security chief.”

            “As in, ditch the agency?” Kate asked, surprise in her voice.

            “Yeah, and she’s been kind of manipulative about it.”

            “I can’t imagine how putting a wedge between you and Kate would help that cause,” Rob said.

            “I can’t either, but she’s got this thing about I’m the only one she feels safe with.”

            “I can’t see a connection there either,” Liz said.

            “And she’s not all that subtle,” Skip added. “She believes she can get anything she wants with either money or her womanly charms.” Kate silently agreed with that assessment but didn’t voice her opinion, reminding herself that she had no waiver to discuss Cherise’s personality with Liz.

            “So we’ve got the paparazzi, or maybe Jim Bolton,” Rob said. “Anybody else come to mind?”

            “You got any enemies, hon, who might want to commit murder by proxy by getting Skip to come after you?” Liz teased.

            Rob chuckled. “That would be a pretty convoluted way to get to me.”

            “I think I’ll be givin’ ole Jimbo a call,” Skip said, a touch of steel in his voice.

            “
I’ll
call him,” Rob said. “He may be more willing to talk to me and if it does sound like he’s the culprit, I can threaten the appropriate legal actions if he doesn’t cease and desist.”

            When Skip didn’t answer, Kate said, “Let him do it, sweetheart. You’re too close to it.”

            “Can you get his number from Cherise?” Rob asked.

            “No,” Liz jumped in. “Might not be a good idea to bring her into this. I’ll find his number for you. He’s probably got a website.”

            “Thanks, guys, for doing this,” Skip said, with heartfelt sincerity.

            “No, thanks necessary. That’s what friends are for,” Liz said.

            “And besides, Skip, this affects me too,” Rob added adamantly. “I don’t like it one bit that someone is using my friendship with your wife to try to come between you two.”

            Skip was very glad Rob couldn’t see the guilt on his face.

* * *

            A week went by with no further excitement. The paparazzi seemed to be losing interest. After leaving several messages, the last of which was a bit menacing, Rob had finally managed to get Jim Bolton on the phone. The man had acknowledged he was indeed Cherise Martin’s publicist. He’d reacted with confusion when Rob mentioned that Cherise had said she’d fired him. Bolton had denied he had anything to do with the letters, flowers or e-mails. Rob had ended the conversation with the threat that any further misrepresentation of Mr. Canfield’s role in Ms. Martin’s life would result in legal consequences.

            The operatives of Canfield and Hernandez strongly suspected Kirk Thompson was Cherise’s stalker, but they couldn’t prove it. There had indeed been a match between his prints and some of those on the knife from the bouquet, but the presence of so many other people’s prints, including Lansing’s and Cherise’s own, weakened the strength of that evidence. Any halfway decent defense attorney could make the case that the knife had been handled on several occasions, hadn’t been used and had been put back away without being washed.

            Rose had discovered Thompson was still hanging around his old neighborhood in New York, sponging off friends and acquaintances for a few nights’ lodging at a time. But she hadn’t been able to catch up with him.

            She had found posters offering a reward for a lost golden retriever attached to lamp posts and in store windows in the area. Rose felt bad for the owners, but had decided not to call them. Better to be left wondering than to know the gruesome fate their Fido had met.

            Cherise had not received any more gory packages or anonymous notes. Rose speculated to her partner that Thompson may have assumed Skip’s comments–that the stalker had been identified and would be prosecuted–were aimed at him. So the dog head, mailed the morning of the day they had held the press conference, had been his last missive.

            Hoping they had scared off the stalker for good, Skip decided it was time to inform Cherise that Rose would be handling her account from now on. He drove out to Howard County, taking the precaution to check for tails before leaving Towson.

            Cherise greeted him with pleasure, until he told her his reason for coming. After ten minutes of her ranting and clinging–he was the only one she could trust, how could he abandon her–he got her calmed down enough to listen to reason.

            “Cherise, the tabloids have moved on to fresher prey, but if we’re seen together in public again, they’ll be right back on our scent. And the risk is too great that they will eventually follow me here. This farm, your sanctuary, is too damned important to risk that. I cannot be directly involved with your account on a regular basis. But it is
Canfield
and Hernandez. I’m not moving to Mars. I’ll be around if needed.”

            On the drive out, Skip had decided not to mention the repercussions to his family should the rumors that he was Cherise’s lover resurface. He suspected she wouldn’t give a damn about that. But he had vowed to himself that his daughter would never again have that solemn wide-eyed look on her face. Nor did he ever want to be responsible for that defeated tone in Kate’s voice ever again.

            “Rose handles the assignment of personnel anyway. It just makes sense that she handle your routine security needs.”

            “She’s not going to make a pass at me, is she?” Cherise said.

            “Say what?” Skip stared at her for several seconds. “Rose is not a lesbian, Cherise.”

            “Are you sure? She’s so manly.”

            Skip’s jaw tightened, but he reined in his temper. “Rose is tough. That’s why she’s my partner. But the ex-Green Beret, the
male
ex-Green Beret she’s been living with for the past three years is even tougher.”

            Cherise just made a little moue with her mouth. “You’ll get involved again, Skip, if something else happens?” she asked again for reassurance.

            “Correct,” Skip said, trying to muster a genuine-looking smile. He stood up.

            Cherise jumped up and threw her arms around him. “I’m going to miss you,” she said into his shirtfront. He gently put his hands on her shoulders and held her away from him.

            “I’m not going anywhere, Cherise. Rose and I confer on cases every day. I’ll be monitoring how things are going.” Skip tried not to let the relief show in his face when Sarah entered the room.

            He turned to the PA. “I was just telling Cherise that Rose will be handling the routine security now that the stalker has apparently been scared off,” he said.

            “Yes, that’s such a relief. No more doggie parts in the mail sack.” Sarah shuddered.

            Skip let go of Cherise’s shoulders and backed toward the door. The PA maneuvered herself between him and her boss, so he could make his escape.

* * *

            Another week of tranquility went by, punctuated only by the normal dramas of two-year-old temper tantrums, a three a.m. emergency call from one of Kate’s clients and the news that Mark had gotten a better job offer. Ben was reassigned as Cherise’s main bodyguard and Mac was relieved of babysitting duty.

            At the dinner table on Thursday, Skip pulled out his vibrating cell phone, scowled at the caller ID, then put the phone back in his pocket. “So how was your day, Pumkin?” he asked Edie as he picked up his fork.

            Halfway through her description of her first riding lesson, Skip scowled again. He quickly looked away from the child so she wouldn’t think he was angry with her.

            “Your pocket is vibrating again, isn’t it?” Kate asked in a low voice as Edie prattled on. Skip nodded.

            Five minutes later the house phone rang. Kate went to the counter to retrieve the portable and handed it to Skip without answering it.

            “Sorry, Edie. Daddy’s gotta take this,” he said to his daughter, then barked into the phone, “Canfield.”

            “She got another letter,” Rose said without preamble.

            Skip caught himself just before he said a big-person word in front of the little people. He said, “It’s Rose,” to Kate, and got up to walk into the living room. “What’s it say?” he asked.

            “Says, ‘Nobody’s ever going to love you the way I do. What do I have to do to get you to give me a chance?’ Came in the fan mail, postmarked in L.A.”

            “Hmm, different tone than the recent ones, more like the earlier notes.”

            “Yeah, I’m thinking Thompson got scared off from making threats but he can’t resist sending her love notes again.”

            “But what’s he doing in L.A.?” Skip wondered.

            “Mooching off more of his druggie buddies maybe, or he got someone to re-post it,” Rose replied. “Ben said the stationary’s not the fancy stuff, like the other notes. Just plain paper.”

            “He may have run out of the fancy stuff.”

            “Cherise is demanding you come to the farm, but I’m recommending against it,” Rose said.

            “How hysterical is she?”

            “On a scale of one to ten about a six point five.”

            “You willing to go out there?”

            “I’m in my car, already on my way. It is my case now,” Rose said. “One of us needs to go to New York to try again to track down Thompson. I was gonna tell her you were so concerned that you headed right up there tonight, while I came out to get the note and make sure the guards were on their toes.”

            “I’ve got a meeting in the morning with a potential new client,” Skip said.

            “I wasn’t suggesting you actually go to New York. I’ll do that tomorrow.”

            “You’re going to lie to the client?” Skip asked, somewhat surprised. Rose was normally a bit of a stickler about honesty, although she had come to understand the necessity of an occasional white lie in the performance of a PI’s duties.

            “To this client, yeah. We don’t need the paparazzi stirred up again. I’ve got a general idea of where to start looking for Thompson, but once I find him, you may need to come up to talk to him. You’re a bit more intimidating than I am.”

            “Only when people don’t know you well, Rosie,” Skip said, with a chuckle.

            “Good thing you’re twenty miles away,
Skippy
,” Rose growled.

            “I shouldn’t be giving you a hard time when you’re doing me a favor. Thanks for catching this hot potato, Rose. I’ll get the next one.”

            “Not if Cherise is the one tossin’ it. She’s my hot potato now,” Rose said.

            “Uh, Rose, watch what you say around her. She thinks you’re gay.”

            “Say what?”

            “Yeah, that was my reaction, but don’t take it personally. She believes in all the politically incorrect stereotypes.”

            “Grrr. Do I have your permission, partner, to fire this client if she pushes the wrong buttons?” Rose asked.

            “We can’t do that. She’d badmouth us to the press and destroy everything we’ve worked for.”

            “I’m willing to risk it if you are. I’ve found work before, I can find it again.”

            Skip only hesitated a second. “Yeah, if you get to the point where you can’t stand her anymore, feel free to politely tell her to stick her security contract where the sun don’t shine.”

            Rose chuckled and disconnected.

            Skip felt a weight lift he hadn’t even realized he’d been carrying. No more letting a client, even a famous and powerful one, call the shots. There was a relaxed smile on his face as he returned to the kitchen to finish having dinner with his family.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

            At a little past noon the next day, Skip’s office phone rang. When he answered, Cherise purred in his ear, “Back so soon from New York?”

            “Uh, yeah, got a lead on Thompson. Rose is following it up,” he quickly improvised. “I had to come back for a meeting.”

            “Must be a very important meeting if it took precedence over finding the man who’s stalking me.” Her tone wasn’t so sweet now.

            “Rose is perfectly capable of following leads, and you are not our only client, Cherise.”

            “I need to talk to you.”

            “So talk.”

            “It’s not something I want to get into over the phone. I’ve had a couple insights about Kirk, why he might be doing this. And there’s something else I need to tell you, but I’m just not comfortable talking about it on the phone.”

            “It’s a bad idea for me to come out there. If some diligent reporter is still lurking in the wings, he or she might follow me to the farm. And I’m not willing to put my family through all that crap with the paparazzi again.”

            “Then I’ll come to you.”

            “Worse idea,” Skip said.

            “I trust you are good enough at your job to shake anybody trying to follow you.” There was a touch of acid in Cherise’s voice. “When will your meeting be over?”

            “Not until four, at the earliest,” he lied.

            “I’ll expect you at five then,” she said, and disconnected.

            Damn, he’d painted himself into a corner. Now he was going to be late for dinner with the kids, his favorite part of the day.

           
Well, until bedtime that is.
He grinned to himself.
Okay, I’m not letting Cherise control me anymore, so what to do? Wait half an hour and then go out there early. Tell her the client cancelled the meeting.