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“Listen to me, Maggie. You need to take that note to the police. What was the name of that police lieutenant you talked to before?”
“Bryson. But he isn’t going to help me. He doesn’t believe me. That isn’t going to change.”
“It might. You have this note and the two you got before.”
“I didn’t keep the first one. I thought it was just a prank.”
But it wasn’t really a matter of having the notes as proof. It wasn’t a matter of the police believing her. The cops were punishing her for a crime she had committed years ago.
A crime she was indeed guilty of committing.
“I won’t go back there,” she said. “I won’t be humiliated that way again.”
A long pause ensued. Roxanne was one of the few people who knew that as a teenager, Maggie had falsely accused the high school quarterback of rape.
At sixteen, she’d been stupid and irresponsible. The truth of it was she’d had sex that night with Josh Varner, though it certainly wasn’t rape. She had encouraged the handsome football player, not fought him, but she’d been frightened of her dad’s reaction when he found out.
“All right,” Roxanne finally said, “if you won’t go to the police, go see that private detective, the guy who runs Atlas Security.”
“Who, Rawlins?”
“You have to do something to protect yourself, Maggie. You don’t know how far this guy might be willing to go. Maybe Trace Rawlins can help.”
Maggie didn’t like it. The cowboy seemed cocky and far too self-assured. Worse yet, she didn’t like the jolt of attraction she’d felt when he looked at her.
But she didn’t like the snide remarks and sideways glances she had gotten at the police station, either.
Josh Varner was the son of a Houston police officer who was now a captain in the vice squad. Hoyt Varner had a score to settle for the unfair trouble she had caused his son years ago.
In a way Maggie didn’t blame him.
“If you won’t call him, I will,” Roxanne said from the other end of the phone, jarring her back to the moment.
“All right, all right, I’ll call.”
“You want me to come over?”
“No, I’ll be fine. I was just on my way to the grocery store, but I guess that can wait.”
“Yeah, I guess it can.”
Maggie ignored the sarcasm.
“Call me after you talk to him,” Roxanne said.
“I will.”
“Call him right now. Promise me.”
“I said I would, didn’t I?”
Roxanne signed off and Maggie hung up the phone. She glanced around the town house, which was still stacked with boxes she hadn’t yet unpacked. Walking over to the breakfast bar separating the living room from the kitchen, she picked up the address book lying on the counter next to the phone and flipped it open.
On a yellow sticky note pressed inside the vinyl cover, she had printed the name Atlas Security. The address on Times Street was there, along with the company phone number and Trace Rawlins’s name.
She stared at the yellow square of paper, then snatched it out of the address book. The office was in the University District, not that far away. Picking up the People magazine she had been reading while she drank her coffee that morning, she very carefully laid the note from her windshield inside the cover and closed it. With the yellow sticky note in hand, she grabbed her purse and headed back to her car.
As she crossed the lot, she scanned the area for anyone who might be watching, but whoever had left the note was gone. Maggie climbed into her little SUV and cranked the engine. As it began to purr, she shifted into gear and drove out of the lot, searching to the right and left, but seeing nothing out of the ordinary.
It didn’t take long to find the brick building with the neatly printed Atlas Security sign on the front. Maggie parked the Escape, picked the magazine up off the passenger seat and got out of the car. She paused when she reached the front door.
Maybe Trace Rawlins wouldn’t help her. Maybe just like everything else she had done in her life, she would have to find a way to handle this alone.
She drew in a shaky breath, thinking maybe this time money would solve the problem. Maybe—for a price—she could find someone willing to help.
Trace reached for his coffee mug and realized his coffee had grown cold. Seated in the chair behind his desk, he’d been going over some upgrades he wanted to install in the alarm system in the library at Rice University, one of the company’s longtime clients. He looked up at the sound of Annie’s voice.
“Someone here to see you,” the older woman said. She tucked the yellow pencil in her hand above an ear. “Her name’s Maggie O’Connell.”
“O’Connell. Doesn’t sound familiar. She say what she wanted?” He had been hoping to leave for home within the hour, pack up his gear and his dog and head for the shore.
“She didn’t say, but you’d better watch out.” Annie didn’t bother to hide her grin. “She’s a redhead.”
He ignored a trickle of irritation. Annie knew his penchant for fiery-haired women and the trouble more than one of them had caused him over the years. And she didn’t hesitate to goad him about it.
On the other hand… “Send her on in.”
He stood up as the lady walked through the door. Five-four at most, slender yet curvy in all the right places. Once he got past the great body in snug jeans and a T-shirt with a Kodak ad on the front that read A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words, he recognized her in a heartbeat.
The photographer he had clashed with three days ago in the Texas Café.
“Well, we meet again,” he drawled. “I hope you aren’t here because Betty wouldn’t give you back your camera.”
“Betty gave it back. She seemed like a very nice woman.”
He thought of the scene at the café, the sizzling temper the redhead had unleashed when he had deleted her photos, and amusement touched his lips. “What can I do for you, Ms. …O’Connell, was it?”
“That’s right. After our little…disagreement, Betty mentioned you were a private investigator.”
“That I am. You need something investigated?”
“Actually, I do.”
He motioned for her to take a seat in one of the two dark brown leather chairs opposite his big oak desk, and sat back down himself. “Why don’t you tell me how I can help you?”
She opened the People magazine he hadn’t noticed she carried, being distracted by her nicely rounded breasts and shapely little behind. And there was all that glorious red hair.
With the magazine nestled in her lap, she opened the first page, then used the tips of her fingers to pick up a piece of brown paper that looked as if it had been torn from a grocery sack. Reaching over, she set it on his desk.
“Someone’s been leaving notes like this on my car. This is the third one I’ve found. Whoever is doing it is beginning to scare me. I thought maybe I could hire you to find out who it is and make him stop.”
Trace rose from his chair, leaned over and turned the paper around to face him, being as careful as she had been. If there were fingerprints on the note, he didn’t want to smudge them.
My precious Maggie,
How