He"d just witnessed her giving Greg Winters carte blanche with her money, for Pete"s sake, while he was expected to debate each step he took to keep her safe.
He"d had more difficult clients before, and some much more irritating, so he couldn"t quite put his finger on the reason she could so easily spark his usually banked temper.
He put it down to the fact that his mood had been approaching dangerous since her father had first coerced him into this job.
The explanation he gave was terse.
"I want you to meet each of the workers who"ll be around for the next few days. Get a good look at them so you"ll remember their faces."
An unexpected chill ran down her spine.
"You mean so I"ll recognize them,"
she interpreted slowly.
He nodded.
"After today, if you see any new faces around here, you find me,
p.r.o.nto.
That shouldn"t be too difficult, since I won"t be far from your side for the duration of this case."
She blinked at him, the lights in her golden eyes dimming.
And then she looked away.
Her voice, when it came, was quiet.
"You think someone might actually come into my house and threaten
me?"
He heard the nerves beneath the even tone, but he didn"t bother to sugarcoat his answer.
"We won"t be taking that risk."
Not waiting for an answer, he went on.
"I"ve spoken to the police."
As he"d a.s.sumed, the detective had been un forthcoming about theinvestigation, saying that he"d discuss it only with Miss Michaels.
Mac had gotten most of his information from Winters and Klas-sen theday before, when he"d interviewed the people who came and went sofreely here.
Both men had been visibly reluctant to speak to him.
"Winters said he saved a total of four letters, which were eventuallyhanded over to the detective. How many others have there been?"
"At least that many."
"When did they start?"
Raine pulled her knees up in front of her and clasped them with her arms.
She felt the sudden need for something solid to hold on to.
"The phone calls began about a month ago, but only lasted a few days.Then the letters started. At first I tried to ignore them. After all,the calls stopped by themselves, and I thought the letters would,too."
She could feel disapproval emanating from him, although he remained
silent.
"Andre pointed out that the letters started a week after articles about me had appeared in the newspapers and in a magazine,"
she informed him.
Grimacing, she added, "When you"re in the public eye, you draw a lot of attention. Not all of it"s positive."
She was reciting word for the word the same line Kla.s.sen had given him
yesterday.
Mac hadn"t liked it any better then.
He wondered if Kla.s.sen was the reason she didn"t take action on the
threats sooner.
He"d taken an instant dislike to the self-important agent, with his impeccable suits and carefully groomed hair.
The feeling had been mutual.
"I would think that would be all the more reason to take safety
precautions,"
he drawled.
She looked away.
She was uncomfortably aware that the first response she"d had to the
letters was denial.
Facing the danger had been too much like facing a reflection of her past.
She despised herself when she took the easy way out, but that was
exactly what she"d done by embracing Andre"s a.s.surances that the
letters were the products of a crank.
She"d tried to ~be strong, as Andre had urged, until the nightmares returned, reminding her insidiously that inner strength was no match against a person intent on doing evil.
"When they continued, I got more and more spooked. So did everyoneelse. I suppose that"s what drove Greg to save the ones ! eventuallyturned over to the detective last week."
Mac flipped open the notebook he"d been holding and glanced at the
scrawled phrases he"d jotted when questioning Winters."" You"re nothing. " " Why should you have it all? " " You"re headedfor a fall. " " Your days are numbered. "" He looked up and saw thather cheeks had grown a shade paler as he"d read the messages outloud.
But she met his gaze squarely. "Were all of them in this vein?"
"More or less.""How about the phone calls? Did you recognize the voice?"She shook her head."It was always a whisper, but the message was pretty much the same. My hara.s.ser apparently isn"t very creative."
He ignored her feeble joke.
"When did the last letter come?"
"A week ago."
Do you have any idea at all who might be sending them?
" " Detective Ramirez already asked me that, and the answer is no.
" The way he was firing the questions at her made her feel she was
being interrogated. Certainly he was being as thorough as thedetective she had talked to. " The calls always came late at night,and the letters have all been in my mail.
" That brought up another interesting point. " When the detective talked about the letters you"d turned over to him, he didn"t mentionanything about envelopes.
" And no amount of questioning had garnered much else from the man, either. Mac had left the police headquarters frustrated, although he"d knownwhat to expect. He doubted even Trey Garrison"s accomplished finessewould have been enough to pry more information from the close-mouthedDetective Ramirez. " I was upset by the first few letters," sheexplained carefully. Nothing in her tone hinted at the panic she"dexperienced upon receiving them. " Andre was concerned that I was getting too agitated, and right before my upcoming show.
" She added wryly, " Very inconvenient timing, you see.
Anyway, he offered to take care of them, and I let him.
I wasn"t aware Greg had saved some of them until later.
There was nothing remarkable about the envelopes, believe me.
They were white and standard size, addressed to me.
" She smiled faintly. " All the printing looked computer generated.
Nothing so dramatic as messages made up of cutout letters from
newspapers, if that"s ~what you"re getting at.