The words hovered on the tip of her tongue. But that would show her hand, and she didn’t know if this urgency she felt from him would last once the danger was past. Needing to get back on some kind of even keel, she dug deep to find something—anything—that would diffuse a little of this desperate, vibrating tension between them. “You’re a lot bossier than you were at eighteen.”
A hint of humor flickered in his eyes. “Blame the Army.”
Her lips twitched. She didn’t want to leave him, didn’t want to go home. A forced-proximity situation wasn’t the most ideal way to explore things with him, but it was the opportunity she had. She wouldn’t waste it. “Fine, since you asked so sweetly, I’ll stay.”
Ty’s posture relaxed as he visibly dropped from DEFCON 1. “I’ll work on the bossy thing.”
She could imagine other scenarios where that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. “Yeah, we’ll talk about that later, too.” Giving in to the need to touch him, she patted his chest, “Meanwhile, if you want me to spill my guts, you’re going to have to feed me. I believe I was promised nachos.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He skimmed a thumb over her cheek, making her heart jump, even as she reflexively turned into the touch.
His eyes searched hers for another long moment before he turned away, wiping the emotion from his face. “Y’all eaten?”
Paisley didn’t actually hear their responses. She was too busy trying to catch her breath. Duke trotted over, leaning against her legs and head-butting her hand to demand pets. She buried her trembling fingers in his fur.
As Ty moved to the kitchen, Ivy wandered over, murmuring sotto voce, “Lucy, you got some ’splaining to do.”
“See,” Sebastian insisted. “He smiled.”
Laurel poked him in the ribs.
“Keep it up, Donnelly, and you forfeit your dinner rations,” Ty called from the kitchen.
“Just callin’ it like I see it.”
Because she still felt a little shaky, Paisley circled around and dropped onto the sofa. Duke sprawled at her feet. “Okay, so, not that I don’t appreciate the collective support, but I’m not exactly clear on why you’re all here.”
“Ty called, we came,” Sebastian said simply. “It’s what brothers do.”
“And because, collectively, we can bring to bear considerably more brain power than has likely been devoted to your case by Metro PD,” Harrison added. “I guarantee they haven’t had a profiler look at your situation.”
“Profiler?”
Ivy took a seat, leaning against her husband and looking faintly embarrassed as she raised her hand.
“I thought your degree was in psychology.”
“Forensic psychology. I originally intended to go into the FBI before I decided I preferred dealing with murder on paper.”
Paisley stared. “How did I not know this about you?”
“Never came up. Plenty from our pasts hasn’t.” She shot a pointed glance at Ty.
“Subtle,” Paisley muttered. “And don’t think I won’t remember this next time I get a wild hair to write romantic suspense.”
“Noted. But for now, what’s going on?”
“I don’t actually know where to start. It’s hard to say what the beginning was.”
“What’s the first thing that gave you hinky vibes?” Laurel offered her own wry smile. “Recovering attorney.”
“There were packages to my P.O. Box. The contents weren’t overtly threatening, but they struck me as odd. Usually, when fans send me stuff—which isn’t all that often—there’s a letter that comes with it, gushing about my books and telling me about why they think I’ll like whatever it is they sent. It’s lovely, really. But this wasn’t that. They were anonymous. No return address, no signature. No explanation at all. Just this printed card with ‘Your biggest fan’ on it. Maybe I’ve read Misery one too many times. I told myself I was being paranoid after I got mugged. Looking for conspiracies that weren’t there.”
“You got mugged?” Guard dog Ty was back, handing her a beer. “When?”
She sipped to wet the throat gone dry. “Back in July. Classic attacked in a parking garage situation by a guy in a ski mask. I wasn’t hurt, really. Just scared. He got away with my my purse. I reported it to the police, of course, but nothing ever came of it. There weren’t any cameras and no leads to follow.”
“When did the packages start?” Harrison asked.
“About four months ago.”
“What made you decide to go to the police?” Laurel asked.
“I didn’t go to them initially. I mean, what was I going to say? Someone is anonymously sending me Starbucks gift cards and my favorite tea, and I’m freaked out about it? It was mostly just a feeling of…something being off. Then one day I ran into a police contact of mine at the post office when I went to pick up my mail. There was another package. He saw my face and asked about it.”
“Fisher,” Ty concluded.
“Yes.”
He finished passing out beverages to everyone else. “How exactly do you know him?”
Not Detective Fisher. Just a surname. Paisley wondered if he recognized that shade of green he was wearing. “Joel is one of the instructors from the citizen’s police academy I took last year.”
Ty frowned. “Why did you go to a citizen’s police academy?”
“Book research. I thought it would help me make some connections with actual law enforcement who would let me pick their brains for plot purposes. Which it did. I got a friend in the crime lab out of it, too.” She shrugged. “Anyway, I told him I had the heebee jeebees, and he said he’d open a case, just to be safe. I really appreciated the fact that he didn’t tell me I was crazy. When the package turned out to be a Funko Pop! Jessica Fletcher, I was back to thinking I was just paranoid.”
“The chick from Murder, She Wrote?” Ivy asked.
“Yeah.”
“You always loved that show,” Ty murmured.
“Still do. I watch reruns when I can’t sleep, which I’ve probably mentioned on social media at some point or other. It was, in a sense, thoughtful. But more came. One here. Two there. And then, a couple of weeks ago, I got the first mailed
