CELEBRITY STATUS (The Kate Huntington mystery series #4) (30 page)

            “This is a damn fine part-time job, too,” McPherson said. “You get to be the boss, do the things you like to do, delegate the rest.”

            “Well, now, I ain’t nobody’s boss. The staff, we all have our own little niche, answer directly to Ms. Martin, each of us does.”

            McPherson changed the subject. “How often does she trail ride?”

            Rose was warming up to this guy. He was asking all the right questions. She might just have hit pay dirt on the first try. They were slowly walking the outer perimeter of the property while they talked. Rose was hanging back a little, not saying anything.

            “She hasn’t been out on the trail at all lately,” Bailey said as they turned a corner and headed across the back property line. “The one mare just foaled and the other’s about to drop hers any day now. Gelding’s still nursing an injury from a few weeks ago, and the two-year-old’s just green broke. Ms. Martin’s been working with him in the ring.”

            Rose hid a grin at the look of relief on McPherson’s face. Providing security for a woman on a horse in the woods would be a total nightmare. She dropped back a little further, looking around. She’d never been up to this part of the property before. It bordered woods and was kind of pretty back here.

            Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out and checked caller ID, then let the men get a few more paces ahead before answering it. The signal was poor. She thought she heard Dolph say that Judith Anderson had picked up Kirk Thompson. Sticking a finger in her other ear, she lowered her head to concentrate on Dolph’s voice cutting in and out.

            A cracking sound startled her, just as someone grabbed the bun on the back of her head and gave it a vicious tug. Yelping in pain, she whirled around to face her attacker.

            Nobody was there. Her scalp stung like hell. She reached up and touched the disheveled bun. Her hand came away wet and sticky.

            The men were running back toward her. “Get down!” McPherson yelled.

            Rose turned toward him, and felt air movement next to her cheek as she heard another cracking sound. She hit the ground. A third crack, and dirt and grass sprayed over her. She rolled toward the nearby woods as she heard McPherson yelling into his cell phone, “Somebody’s firing on us–”

            The rest of what he was saying was drowned out by a fourth crack and a hole appeared in the tree under which Rose had just rolled. She scrambled behind the tree.

            The two men dove into the woods beside her. “Damn freakin’ hunters!” Bailey growled.

            McPherson duck-walked over to where Rose was crouched. “Let me see your head.”

            “I’m okay.”

            “Uh, no you’re not. You’ve got blood running down your neck and there’s a nice neat little hole right through your bun.”

             Rose held up the hand with which she had grabbed her hair. It was covered in blood, and there was dirt and gore all over her shiny new ring. She swore under her breath.

            “Let me see,” McPherson said. He started poking at her scalp. “You’re lucky. Just nicked you, but head wounds bleed like a son-of-a-bitch.”

            They could hear sirens in the distance. “I suppose this means you won’t be taking the job?” Rose said as she saw Cherise bolt out of the back door of the house and start running toward them. Sarah was on her heels.

            “Hell no, I like a challenge,” McPherson said.

            “Good, then go tackle your new charge before she gets herself shot.”

            Thirty minutes later the Howard County officers who had responded were taking a statement from Bailey in the living room, having already written down what McPherson and Rose had to say. Rose was sitting at the kitchen table, her silky black hair cascading down her back. She winced occasionally as a paramedic cleaned the wound on the crown of her head.

            Dolph hovered nearby, trying not to look anxious. He had been on his way to the Towson police station when his call to Rose had been so abruptly interrupted. He’d made it to the farm in record time.

            “Just a surface wound, ma’am,” the paramedic said, his tone indicating his frustration that she refused to go to the hospital. “I need to shave the hair around it, so I can bandage it properly.”

            Rose twisted her head around and glared up at him. There was very little she was vain about, but the one exception was her hair. “Has it stopped bleeding?”

            “Mostly. It’s seeping a little.”

            “Then we’re done. Thanks for your help.”

            The young man shrugged and started packing up his gear. McPherson touched Rose’s shoulder and tilted his head toward the dining room. Dolph followed them.

            Once out of earshot of the others, McPherson said, “I’m assuming you know that July is not hunting season around here.”

            “That wasn’t a hunter. One shot’s an accident. Four is on purpose,” Rose said.

            “And the shots weren’t coming from the woods. I walked back up there. The angle the bullet went into that tree.” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “It came from the direction of the buildings.”

            Rose turned and looked through the doorway into the living room, where Sarah hovered solicitously at her employer’s elbow.

            “Shot didn’t go in very deep, but it made a mess of the wood,” McPherson was saying. “Low caliber, hollow point bullet would be my guess.”

            Rose digested that. Hollow points fragmented upon contact with a target. Even at low caliber, they did a lot of damage inside the human body.

            “Not just trying to scare me off,” she said.

            Thompson was in custody, so this was definitely a copycat. And whoever it was wanted Canfield and Hernandez out of the way badly enough to kill.

* * *

            Rose was still staring at the computer monitor in her office at eight that night, absently fingering the tender spot on her head. She’d completed a thorough background check on Sharon Millington and then had moved on to Cherise’s PA.

            Hell of a way to treat her new fiancé, but she wanted to get this done tonight. Mac would understand. He was the same way, strong sense of duty and fiercely loyal to those he loved. They were like two peas in a pod, even though they seemed so different on the surface.

            They had waited a long time to make this decision. He’d been married twice before so of course he was gun shy. And she had never planned to marry at all, couldn’t handle the thought of some man trying to take care of her or control her. But Mac knew she could take care of herself, and he’d no sooner try to tell her what to do than he’d try to fly to the moon.

            Rose shook her head, then winced at the tug of the new scab on her scalp. Why was she sitting here daydreaming when she should be finishing up so she could go home.

            She clicked keys on her keyboard, glared at the screen, then closed that window. Okay, let’s try something else. She went to another website. Hit computer keys a few times, moved the mouse, clicked, clicked again. Shook her head. Nope, nothing there either.

            Rose blew out her breath. After an hour of searching, all she had was a Record of Live Birth, with the correct Social Security number, issued September 20, 1978, in Talbot County.

            Okay, begin at the beginning. School records. More tapping and clicking. Nothing.

            What was it with this woman? Squeaky clean was one thing, but she had to have gone to school somewhere?

            Then Rose had a thought. She exited that website and surfed on over to another. And a big grin spread across her face.

            Sarah Hamilton, Social Security number 555-84-4691, had no police record, not even a traffic ticket, had never had her name in the paper, never chatted with friends on Facebook or My Space as a teenager. Indeed, she had never gone to school, not even elementary school, because Sarah Hamilton had died of crib death when she was four months old.

* * *

            Bright and early the next morning Rose went into her partner’s office and closed the door. Rearing back in his chair, Skip’s face blanched.

            “No, it’s okay,” she said quickly. “No new articles. See no papers under my arm, nothing up my sleeve.” She started to grin at him, but the seriousness of his expression stopped her.

            “Damn,” she said as she flopped into his visitor’s chair. “Now you’re like Pavlov’s dogs, only instead of salivating, you freak out every time I come into the room.” That worked. Now he was grinning a little.

            She put both hands on his desk, giving him a perfect opportunity. Her new ring sparkled in the light from the florescent fixture overhead.

            Skip ran a hand down his face. “Sorry. I’ll try not to act like you’re the grim reaper coming to get me.”

            Okay, he’d had his chance. Rose retracted her hands. “I came in and closed the door ’cause I didn’t want the whole gang hearing this. I’m beginning to think Cherise’s new stalker, it’s an inside job.” She filled him in on what she had found, and failed to find, on Sarah Hamilton.

            “I’m going out there and have a little chat with Miss PA right now,” Rose concluded.

            “I’m going with you, as back-up.”

            “Good. You can probably charm the truth out of her better than I can.”

            As they climbed into Skip’s truck, he said, “I got something else to discuss with you, partner. I met with yet another potential new client yesterday.”

            “Yippee,” Rose said, as he started down the street, checking his rearview mirror for unwanted tag-alongs.

            “Well, maybe. I need to get a proposal to them by the end of the day. I’m hesitating because we really are getting spread too thin. Even with McPherson taking over most of the security at Cherise’s, that only frees up bodyguards. We still don’t have enough investigators. Dolph’s started on the Paterson case today, which is gonna keep him tied up for awhile. And with Mac and Ben guarding my family... Maybe that isn’t really necessary now. The paparazzi have backed off, and Thompson’s in custody.”

            Rose looked over at her partner. He’d said that getting away for the weekend had been good, but his face was tight, and there were new worry lines etched into his skin that hadn’t been there just a few weeks ago.

            “Let’s leave that be for a few more days, considering what happened yesterday. We don’t know for certain that Thompson was the one who messed with the van. Better to make sure Kate and the kids are safe. So what’s the new case you’re debating about?”

            “Insurance fraud, straight-forward surveillance. But they want fast results. We’d need to put somebody on starting tomorrow.”

            “Go ahead and take the case. With any kind of luck, we’ll wrap up Cherise’s stalker soon, one way or the other. I’ll start the surveillance myself in the morning. I’ll see if Ben’s willing to work overtime, to do the evening shift. Did his paperwork come through yet for his provisional license?”

            “Yeah, just yesterday. I’m glad he finally decided to start training,” Skip said. “He’s smarter than he gives himself credit for. He’s been wasting himself just using his muscle as a bodyguard.”

            “Yup, but now he’s got a bright future with Canfield and Hernandez, and this week he’ll get his first official investigating gig.”

            For the rest of the ride, as was their habit, they bounced ideas off each other about their cases.

            As Skip pulled into Cherise’s driveway, Rose sat up even straighter than her normal erect posture. “I just thought of something. Sarah might not be our stalker after all. She could be using a false identity because she’s running from the law.”

            “Or an abusive boyfriend or husband,” Skip said. “I don’t think we should tell Cherise that Sarah isn’t who she seems, at least not until we can get the woman alone to question her.”

            Rose nodded. “Don’t want to get her fired if she’s got good reason to be hiding from somebody.”

            Manny answered the door. As they entered the vast living room, Cherise came out of the kitchen. “Uh, oh. Last time you both showed up, you tried to get rid of me as a client.”

            Skip gave Cherise what he hoped was a disarming grin. “Not our agenda this time. We actually wanted to talk to Sarah.”

            “Afraid you’re out of luck. She’s not here. Why do you want to talk to her?”

            “Just wanted to touch base with her about a few things regarding the notes,” Rose said. “Where is she?”

            “I sent her home. She was sniffling and I can’t afford to catch a cold. I have a performance coming up soon.” Cherise gestured toward the white leather sofas. “What things about the notes?”

            Skip ignored the question as they all sat down. “Where does she live?” he asked.

            “Honestly, I don’t know. She seems to move every three or four months. Can’t seem to find an apartment that really suits her, I guess. I stopped trying to keep track of her address over a year ago.”

            Skip and Rose exchanged a look. Moving often would fit with running from an abusive spouse or boyfriend.

            “How long has she worked for you?” Rose asked.

            “A little over two years.”

            “How well did you check her out when you hired her?” Skip asked.

            “She had a good resumé, came highly recommended. She had a letter from her previous employer, a bigwig producer in Hollywood.”

            “Did you call this producer to verify that the letter of recommendation was real?”

            “Well, no. I figured I’d take her on for a trial run, and if she didn’t work out, I’d let her go. But she did work out. She does a great job. Why all the questions about Sarah? What’s going on?”

            “Just a minor discrepancy we need to ask her about. It’s not a big deal,” Skip said.