But the other man in her life remained stubbornly silent.
21
Will was having lunch with Mack and Jake when Laila approached, her expression troubled.
“Do you have a minute?” she asked him, after greeting the other men.
“Sure,” Will said. He turned to Mack. “Order a grilled ham and cheese for me, would you?”
“As if you needed to say it,” Jake taunted. “That’s what you have every Thursday.”
Will frowned. “Are you suggesting I’m predictable?”
“Disgustingly so,” Mack agreed, laughing. “There have been bets placed on how long it will be before you actually shake things up and order something different.”
“My money’s on never,” Jake added.
If Laila hadn’t been standing there, Will might have said something more pointed, but he settled for a scowl, then muttered, “I’ll be back, and we’ll finish this conversation then.”
Laila led the way outside and headed toward one of the benches on the town green, still looking grim. Even after they were seated, she couldn’t seem to summon up a way to get into whatever was bothering her. In a woman he’d always found to be direct and forthcoming, her behavior was uncharacteristically reticent.
“Do you need counseling about something?” Will prodded carefully. “Would you be more comfortable in my office?”
She shook her head. “Truthfully, I don’t know quite how to get into this,” she began, then took a deep breath and added more bluntly, “I think there may be a problem with your dating service. A serious one.”
Alarm bells immediately went off for Will. “What sort of problem?” he asked, dread settling in his stomach.
“Once a match is made, you pass along contact information, right?”
“Only with each party’s permission,” he said. “Why? What’s happened?”
“I’ve been getting some calls in the past week. First, it was just a couple of odd hang-ups, but twice now there have been obscene messages left on my answering machine. I brought the tape.” She reached into her purse and handed it to him.
“Why not take it to the sheriff? And what makes you think it has anything to do with Lunch by the Bay? I’m not questioning you, just asking how you came to that conclusion.”
She nodded, not looking the least bit offended. “The timing, I guess. It could be some random jerk, I suppose, but it started right after I turned down a second date with this one guy I’d met through your company.”
Will winced. “Are you sure it’s the same man leaving the messages?”
“Not a hundred percent, no,” Laila said. “I tried to check the number for the incoming calls, but it’s blocked. I’ve listened to the tape maybe four times now, hoping I could tell for sure if it’s his voice, but I can’t swear to it. I’d had a prior message from the guy before we went out, but I’d erased it as soon as I’d called him back.”
“No reason not to,” Will agreed.
“I came directly to you because I thought maybe you’d want to check it out before the police get involved,” she told him. “If it turns out I’m right and this goes public, it could ruin your company’s reputation. I certainly didn’t want to take a chance on that without proof.”
“Damn the company!” Will said heatedly. “I don’t want my clients harassed like this. It’s wrong. Why don’t we go back to my office right now and call this guy? I’ll put him on speaker phone, and we can compare his voice to the tape. Maybe if we do it together, we’ll know for certain. Then, one way or the other, we’ll go straight to the police.”
Laila nodded. “Thanks. I thought I was a pretty tough woman, but I have to admit these messages shook me up. You’ll see what I mean once you’ve listened to them.”
“I can see how much they’ve disturbed you, and you’re not the kind of woman who gets rattled without good reason,” Will said grimly. “Let’s go and see what we can find out.”
“What about your lunch?”
He gave her a wry look. “Haven’t you heard? It’s the same old boring thing.”
She laughed. “I’ll take you out for something more exciting as soon as we get this resolved,” she offered.
“Sounds like a deal to me.” He studied her as they walked. “You okay?”
She forced a smile. “I will be, as soon as this guy’s off the streets.”
“Until that happens, why don’t you stay with your folks or Trace and Abby?”
“I don’t want them to know about any of this. They’ll just worry. Plus, you know Trace. He’ll never let me hear the end of the fact that I used a dating service in the first place, even yours.”
“Then stay over at the inn with Jess.”
She gave him an amused look. “You going to stand guard over both of us?”
“Absolutely.”
“Then I’ll think about it. It makes sense, actually, though I hate giving in to fear.”
“Sometimes fear can be a healthy thing. In this case, I think it’s justified.”
After he’d heard the tape, then placed the call to the man they suspected, Will felt even more strongly about that. When he spoke to Vince, he was careful not to suggest he was aware of the calls to Laila. He acted as if he were only inquiring about how Vince liked the Lunch by the Bay service.
“It’s been great, man!” Vince said enthusiastically. “Thanks to you, I’ve found quite a few women I otherwise wouldn’t have met. I’ve been staying in close contact with a couple of them.”
“Which ones?” Will asked innocently. “I like to know which matches seem to be working out.”
“That Laila from the bank? She’s a real hottie.” He named another client, as well.
Will shuddered as he listened. Though the comment could have been made in all innocence by any man, there was an unmistakable undertone that set off alarm bells.
Will wondered if the other woman had been receiving the same kind of calls. Rather than saying something that might give away
