“The only thing we do know for certain is you had a stowaway.” Marcus set a somewhat dusty-looking metal disc on the table in front of them.
“Stowaway?” Mary asked.
Their woman had no idea what the device was, but Anthony did. And so did Toby.
“Fuck me, a tracking device?” Toby sounded disgusted and mad.
“And not a very long range one,” Marcus said. “It’s been there for a while I’d say, based on the dust. Any idea where you could have picked it up?”
“Since we came back from Waco the other night with our bags, we’ve not been out of the immediate vicinity.” Anthony looked over at Adam. “Have there been out-of-towners prowling about lately?”
“Not that I’m aware of. Was the car left unattended during the time you were in Waco?” Adam asked.
“Yes,” Toby said. “We stopped at both our apartments, and we all went inside both times.”
“Either stop would have been enough time for someone to slip that little thing onto the car.” Anthony looked around the table, and everyone there showed expressions of interest. He could understand why. There was a mystery to be solved. He looked over at Mary, expecting to see the expression of an investigator at work.
And saw instead…. guilt. And it wasn’t just Mary looking guilty, either, because he saw a similar expression on Toby’s face.
“Do either of you care to shed some light on this little mystery?” Adam had apparently come to the same conclusion Anthony had once he’d looked at them, too. One more surprise—or not—was the way that Mary and Toby looked at each other.
Whatever was going on, they each held a secret. Anthony recalled the other night, when they were beginning to get to know each other, that they’d each more or less hinted at something but had refused to elaborate.
“Well,” Mary exhaled. “I might have neglected to um…make you aware of one little thing that happened in New York before I arrived here.” She gave Adam an innocent grin, one that he plainly wasn’t buying.
“Toby?” Adam could put steel in his voice when he needed to. Anthony admired a man who could go from genial good ’ole boy to hard-edged cop in a heartbeat like that.
Toby exhaled as well. “Yeah, well, there is something you probably need to know.”
“Tomorrow morning. My office at nine a.m. And you both better tell me everything.”
“Damn it.” Mary looked like she really wasn’t looking forward to the moment. And then she met his gaze and must have understood that confessing whatever it was to Adam wasn’t the moment she should be nervous about right then.
Before he accompanied them to the sheriff’s office the next day, he wanted the whole story from them both. And he’d have that as soon as they got home tonight.
Chapter Nine
Mary sighed then looked from Anthony to Toby. Toby had already flipped a coin, and because he’d won that toss, he’d chosen to spill his guts second.
Then she met Anthony’s gaze and knew that while he might be a little bit pissed at the moment—or maybe a lot pissed—he was more worried than mad.
She inhaled deeply and began. “All right. So, about a year ago, I started receiving emails from a fan—emails that started out normal. Despite having some success as an author, I’m still trying to build my brand. My books are available in e-book format first, and I’ve discovered that e-book readers are different than the fiction readers of my mother’s generation. My readers expect me to answer their emails, and so I do.” She let her mind wander to the many readers who’d reached out to her over the last few years. She really considered them the very best part of the career she’d chosen—even better than the money. “It’s usually one of the best parts of my day, really. I don’t pretend that anything I write has any great literary merit or anything like that. But I do entertain people, and sometimes, I create characters that actually touch something in a reader.” Both of her men were paying very close attention to her. “It’s why I write, to make that connection. Life can be lonely for a lot of people.”
She wasn’t one to wax philosophical, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t aware of certain nuances. There was more to writing—even writing mysteries—than just putting together a story.
“So, you started to receive emails from someone…”
Anthony had brought her back to the conversation. Such a cop thing to do. It almost felt as if she was being questioned by a cop.
Well, duh, you’re being questioned by two of them.
“Yes, and someone I’d never heard from before. I was pretty certain this was a man. He signed his emails ‘T. Northcliffe.’ And the phrasing he used was…masculine. I can’t define it any better than that.”
“We’ll say that your experience has taught you to differentiate gender based on…dialogue.”
Toby’s summation hit it, spot-on.
“Yes. And then he began to be critical of my stories in an eerie way. He wrote as if the characters were real. He got angry with me when my heroine, Skye Falcon, became romantically involved with Eddie Coulter, who’s a cop on the force. He told me that I had turned her into a whore. He told me Skye was too noble to stoop to that level. That I’d better break them up, or he’d do it for me.”
“Fuck. I hope you reported that asshole to the police.” Anthony’s expression was fierce.
“Oh, I did. They didn’t take me seriously at first. But in the end, they had no choice.” She licked her lips and looked from Toby to Anthony. She decided not to give them chapter and verse about the months-long situation. Bottom line it, because they’re going to freak out either way.
It would be just like ripping a bandage off. So she lined up her words and let ’em rip. “He broke into my apartment and tried to kill me. I’m not without some skills—I do have
