A thousand thoughts rushed through Isabel’s head like a high-speed train derailing. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak.
At the far end of the bar, he was seated in the very spot that she had passed on the way back from the restroom. He must’ve arrived while she was inside.
Well-groomed as always, wearing a tailored suit, he resembled a thirtysomething Hugh Jackman. Looking at him, no one would suspect what he really was. Isabel hadn’t the first time they met. He’d lured her in with his good looks, smooth charm and sophistication, his ability to talk to anyone about anything. She’d been flattered when he’d asked her out.
He sat there in the restaurant, staring at her. Unblinking. His eyes rabid, excited. His body rigid. With his elbows propped on the bar, he brushed one index finger across the other and mouthed, “Shame on you.”
Isabel choked on the French fry going down her throat. She coughed, patting her chest, struggling to breathe, to gain her bearings.
Why was he here?
But deep down she knew. He was here because of her.
“Are you all right?” Dutch asked, handing her a glass of water. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
More like a living, breathing nightmare.
Her nerves stretched tight as bowstrings as she tried to gauge how far away he sat. At least seventy-five feet in the large restaurant. The restraining order only stipulated fifty.
He was within legal bounds.
The last time he’d pulled a stunt like this, he had shown up at LACMA, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, when she’d been enjoying her time off with Brenda. For days she and Brenda had planned the excursion, texting back and forth about shopping on Rodeo Drive afterward and having a late lunch at the best Peruvian restaurant in town. Isabel had stood her ground and called the police.
And they had done absolutely nothing.
If the petitioner was aware the respondent was in the vicinity and wasn’t violating the provisions of the restraining order, then it was the petitioner’s responsibility to leave.
Not the other way around.
She had argued that it hadn’t been a coincidence and the police had countered that LACMA was the largest art museum in the western United States with a new exhibit that’d just started. Could she prove that it wasn’t a coincidence?
Of course not.
It didn’t help the situation that he was well-known by the cops, well liked and respected.
Trepidation weighted every muscle in Isabel’s body and her stomach clenched hard as a fist. “I have to go.”
“What?” Dutch froze with the burger in his hand midair before taking a single bite. “What’s wrong?”
Dropping her gaze, she said, “There’s an urgent call I have to make. I need to leave.”
“All right. Let’s box up the food.”
“No.” Grabbing her purse, she stood. “I’m not hungry anymore. I lost my appetite.”
“Isabel, what’s happening right now?”
“I told you.” Her gaze flickered up to the far end of the bar.
He was still staring at her. An ominous smile full of evil spread on his face. Like some demon sent from hell to torment her. That’s what he wanted—to possess her, body, mind and soul.
A chill spilled down her entire body, and she had an almost uncontrollable urge to make the sign of the cross over her chest.
Dutch turned as if to see what she was looking at, and that sicko glanced away almost immediately and called to a bartender.
Isabel could barely swallow, her throat growing dry as sandpaper. She spun on her heel and dashed out the door.
Heavy footsteps thudded after her. A warm, strong hand took her wrist, callused fingertips pressed against her skin, bringing her to a gentle stop on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant.
“I know something is wrong,” Dutch said, facing her. “You just did a one-eighty on me for a reason. Please, tell me what it is.”
Shame burned a hole in her heart. There was no clear way to explain—her lack of judgment and poor instincts, every twisted thing that man had done to her, the degrees of sickness she had tolerated, how she’d allowed him to steal her dignity. The ways he’d terrorized her after she’d ended the relationship.
How did she let any of it happen?
A sob rattled her chest.
If she told Dutch, once she finished spewing out the whole sordid story, he would no doubt see her as a victim.
It was bad enough her best friend looked at her with poor you in her eyes. She wasn’t inviting another person to the pity party.
“I’m sorry. Today wasn’t a good day for lunch. I have to go.” Isabel turned and fled at a pace just short of running.
No wasting precious seconds glancing back over her shoulder. No waiting at the light to cross—she held out her hand to cars and dashed across traffic. No aching lungs or quivering thighs holding her back. No letting her three-inch heels slow her down. She’d scurry down the street on stilts if she had to.
Hot tears blurred her eyes, and she thumbed them away.
Shoving through the gallery door, she almost bumped into Brenda.
“Why are you back so soon?” her friend asked. “Did you have time to eat?”
She hurried up the stairs. “He was there.”
Brenda stopped dead in her tracks and recoiled. “Not...him.”
On the mad dash back to the gallery, the fear that had been bubbling inside Isabel had turned to boiling anger. Just when she thought she could pick up the pieces of her life and move on, that bastard came back. Taunting her. Admonishing her.
How dare he invade her life again. Who did he think he was?
“Yes. Chad Ellis.” The sound of his name grated on Isabel’s ears.
For months, she’d told herself that if she didn’t say the name of that twisted man, refused to see his face in her mind’s eye, started training, got stronger, that somehow it would take away his power.
But all it had done was make her hypersensitive to him. Left her weakened and unprepared for a face-to-face encounter.
That was a mistake she wasn’t going to repeat.
Brenda’s heels clacked up the stairs after her. “What are you going to do?”
“Stop pretending that he’s going to disappear.” Isabel sat behind her desk and picked up the phone. She dialed the One Stop Home Security Superstore that had installed the alarm system in her condo and where she’d also purchased the pepper spray.
“Hello, Douglas speaking. How can I help you?”
Good, it was the owner. “Hi, Doug, this is Isabel Vargas from—”
“I remember you. How is everything working out?”
“The last time we spoke about tools I could use for personal safety, other than a gun, you made a recommendation that I thought wasn’t necessary, but I’ve reconsidered.”
“Oh, you’re talking about the Pacifier.” A fourteen-inch stun gun baton that delivered 10,000 volts. “Yeah, that’ll make someone trying to attack you regret it. Guaranteed.”
“Yes. That’s it. I’d like to purchase five.”
“Five? That’s a lot. You sure you need that many?”
“You heard me correctly.” Two for the gallery, one for her purse and two for her home. She’d never be caught without one. Ever. “Can you have them delivered to the gallery?”
“Sure can. They’ll be there within the hour. Would you like me to use the credit card we have on file?”
“Yes. Thank you.” She disconnected, raised a finger to Brenda, asking her to wait, and called her Krav Maga instructor at the self-defense school. “Hi, John. It’s Isabel. I was wondering if you had room for me in your evening class tonight.”
“Sure. No problem. Everything all right?”
“No. It isn’t.”
“I can have Abraham take the class later and we can work one-on-one, if you’d like.”
She let out a deep breath, her muscles slowly beginning to loosen. “I’d appreciate that very much. Thank you.” She hung up. Already the panic was receding, and she felt grounded.
“Did you tell Dutch?” Brenda asked.
“No,” Isabel snapped. The answer to every problem wasn’t a man.
“Why not?”
The only person she could depend on to always be there for her was herself. She’d relied on her father for everything from support, reassurance, comfort, to unconditional love. And one day, he was gone.
Killed in a drive-by shooting.
The pain, the hole his death left seemed never ending. The only way to get through it was to be the person her father had always wanted her to be.
Strong and capable and happy.
Two out of three wasn’t bad, so that’s what she’d focus on.
“I can take care of myself.”
DUTCH SET THE to-go containers of food on the front desk of Kismet and wrote his cell phone number on the top of the carton. Something had spooked Isabel, but no sense in her or Brenda starving, especially since lunch was paid for.
Voices came from the office upstairs, but he didn’t want to intrude. He’d followed Isabel back to the gallery, giving her plenty of space while making sure that she was okay. She’d almost gotten hit by a car crossing one street, but she seemed more concerned about whatever she’d been running from.
“Why do you have to be so stubborn?” Brenda asked, her voice heavy with concern. “You don’t have to do this alone. I’m sure Dutch would help you, but you have to tell him what you’re up against.”
“I want him to see me,” Isabel said, “not Chad Ellis’s victim!” A hand slammed against a wooden surface and a chair scraped against the floor. “I have to help myself. Do you understand? I’m not going to accept my uncle’s bodyguards who’d only spy on me and report every move I make back to him and I’m certainly not going to start leaning on a man I just met, expecting him to protect me from that maniac!”
Dutch stiffened as he eavesdropped on their conversation.
Maniac? Chad Ellis?
The name hadn’t been in Isabel’s file.
“I like Dutch, okay! He’s a solid prospect for once. I won’t let Chad ruin that, too. He’s taken enough away from me.”
Dutch crept out of the gallery as quietly as he’d entered. His thoughts spun around Isabel’s reaction in the restaurant and everything he’d overheard.
Not a lick of it added up with the information he’d been given, troubling him a little and angering him quite a lot.
Going around the back way, he went to the command center across the street, where he found Allison and Draper. Jake Prindle hadn’t come back.
“How did it go?” Allison asked.
“Not well, but it had nothing to do with me.” He looked at Draper. “Who is Chad Ellis?”
A stupefied expression crossed his boss’s face. “Never heard the name.”
“Cut the crap and stop playing me,” Dutch said. “I can’t do my job if I don’t have all the information.”
Draper put his hands on his hips. “You have the same file the FBI gave me.”
“It’s true,” Allison said, as though she sensed Draper’s word couldn’t be trusted. “I saw it myself. The same behavioral analyst who recommended you put the file together on Isabel Vargas for us.”
“I want a name,” Dutch demanded.
“Sheila Rogers,” Allison said. “Out of the LA office on Wilshire Boulevard.”
Dutch turned for the door.
“Hold on, Haas. I can’t have you stirring up trouble with the FBI.”
“I’m going over there to get answers and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”
“Fine.” Draper yanked on his suit coat. “But I’m coming with you.”
LESS THAN THIRTY minutes later, Dutch and Draper were seated in Special Agent Rogers’s office that was the size of a broom closet. They were so close to her desk that Dutch’s knees practically touched the hardwood.
“Thank you for seeing us on such short notice, Agent Rogers,” Draper said. “We appreciate you taking the time from your busy schedule.”
Agent Rogers responded with similar professional chitchat.
They didn’t have time for pleasantries. The inconsistencies surrounding Isabel had been rolling around in Dutch’s head like a pinball, ringing warning bells and raising red flags. He needed answers. To hell with the rest.
“The file we were given on Isabel Vargas was incomplete,” Dutch said. “Why?”
Frowning, Draper threw him an irritated glance. “You have to excuse Deputy Marshal Haas. He can be overly direct.”
Agent Rogers was a petite woman with long, straight dark hair framing her narrow face and elfin features. She looked between them, finally setting her gaze on Dutch. “Based on your mission objectives, the limited amount of time you had to prepare and your lack of undercover experience, I gave you the relevant information you needed to be successful.”
Leaning forward, Dutch put his forearms on his thighs. “There’s some maniac she’s terrified of who’s making her life hell.”
“Chad Ellis,” Agent Rogers said matter-of-factly. “She has a restraining order against him.”
“What?” His elevated tone drew Draper’s gaze and a reproving head shake. Dutch took a breath, trying to calm down. “I’d call that relevant.”
“First, Ellis hasn’t been in the picture for months.”
“He showed up today in a restaurant where we went for lunch.”
Agent Rogers straightened, a glimmer of concern passing over her face. “That’s not good.”
“You don’t say. Isabel hightailed it out of there and I had no clue why. If I’d known, I could’ve confronted him. Warned him to stay away from her.”
Agent Rogers folded her arms across her chest and studied him. “Did Isabel tell you about Ellis?”
Dutch sat back. “No. I overheard her talking about him afterward in her gallery.”
Agent Rogers nodded slowly. “So, if you saw Ellis, a man you’re not supposed to know, sitting in a place that he’s not supposed to be, intimidating Isabel from afar, you would’ve done what? Went over, jerked him out of his chair by his shirt and threatened him?”
“Sounds about right,” Draper said. “That’s precisely what you did with Prindle when things didn’t go the way you’d expected.”
“And you would have blown your cover,” Agent Rogers said in a soft, firm voice. “Believe it or not, I’m trying to help you. According to your profile, if you had known about Chad Ellis, your initial response to Isabel would’ve been overly protective and caused her to withdraw from you rather than endearing her.”
“Speaking of my profile, why did you pick me?”
“How would be a better question,” she said. “After discussing the situation with Marshal Draper, I did some research on Isabel Vargas with the help of our cyber unit. We issued a warrant and requisitioned her dating profile from a top-tier online matchmaking site and discovered she has a type. Not only physically.” Agent Rogers gestured to Dutch. “But she’s also attracted to men who are highly intelligent, but have a middle-class background, energetic, passionate, socially dominant and who exhibit appetitive-aggressive traits. Three out of the four she dated from the site also rode motorcycles and expressed an interest in extreme sports. In short, they were adrenaline junkies. Does this sound familiar?”
Dutch restrained the sigh building in his throat and refused to concede that she had just described him, although he wasn’t certain about the appetitive-aggressive bit. “How me and not someone else?” He couldn’t be the only guy in the USMS fitting that profile.
“The situation presented discriminating factors. No one from California could be used because of the data breach. We needed a single male, late twenties to early thirties, who wasn’t on an active assignment, had been with the USMS less than three years and had a background we could tinker with, filling in your work history. The fact that you both lost your fathers in your early teens was a bonus. You were perfect. No one else came close to your numbers. Algorithms don’t make mistakes.”
That explained the easy, natural connection he formed with Isabel, but it also raised an important question. “This Ellis guy, are you saying he and I are alike?”
“Not quite. With Ellis, she deviated from her usual type. She met him at a function, not online. From what I can tell, Ellis exhibits psychopathic traits, which is quite common in the corporate world. Charming, arrogant, risk taker, no remorse, a master manipulator. Whereas you’re honest, noble, and during your US Marshals assessment displayed a high degree of empathy. All strengths that could also be a weakness in this situation. The emotional handling required here is a delicate balance and having all the facts from her file would’ve hurt your ability to forge a bond with the asset.”
Asset again. Dutch gritted his teeth. “I want to see the complete file.”
“I have to advise against that. In this case, less is more where the asset is concerned. If you want to see more on her uncle, that’s fine. But you need to trust that I’ve given you everything you need to succeed.”
“I don’t know you. I don’t trust you. I need all the facts or I can’t do my job effectively.”
Agent Rogers turned to her computer and typed away on her keyboard. “I just emailed it to Marshal Draper and cc’d Deputy Chen-Boyd.”
The hyphenated name wasn’t a surprise to Dutch. Allison had never used Boyd around him, but some days she wore a wedding ring and some days she didn’t, like someone with unresolved feelings going through a separation.
“But I must warn you,” Agent Rogers said. “Give serious consideration to how you’ve interacted with the asset so far and what’s elicited a positive response. Don’t deviate from that. Above all, don’t let details that you’re not supposed to know slip.”
Dutch stood and shook Agent Rogers’s hand. “Duly noted.”