“I’m fine, Cam. And no, now that I think about it, I don’t find any of it suspicious. I just think I haven’t been getting much sleep lately. I recently finished dealing with a fiftieth wedding anniversary party, and the client was an absolute nightmare. I’m going to turn off my phone until next Wednesday, when I meet with my new client. That way I can sleep for days on end and get all caught up. Then things will stop happening that I can’t remember.”
“Tell me everything that’s been happening,” he demanded.
He had that alert look in his eyes again that she didn’t like one little bit. She was going to put the kibosh on that right away.
“You’re overreacting, Cam, and you know it. You need to drop this.”
Cam’s eyes turned into slits as he stared her down. Sadly enough, she was still standing in the kitchen doorway. Bravery with rodents wasn’t her strong suit.
“If there’s something you’re not telling me, then you’d better spit it out now, Grace.”
“Does that tone really work on people, Cam? Tell me. Because I guarantee that you’re not scary,” she said, putting her hand on her hip and tapping her toe.
“Oh, it works when I want it to.”
He was only inches from her, and a tremor ran down her spine, but it wasn’t caused by fear. He’d already left her needy and achy once today. She wasn’t about to let him do that to her again.
Cam let out a low growl, then turned on his heel, moved to her table, and easily set it upright. It was done before she had a chance to tell him she could do it herself. The problem she wanted taken care of was the damn rodent, not her table.
“I’ll check on you later,” Cam said as he moved back over to her front door.
She watched in horror when he stepped outside and began walking away. “What about the mouse?” she yelled after him.
“Feed it some cheese.”
He quickly climbed into his car and left. It took ten more minutes for Grace to talk herself into going back into her apartment. The first thing she did was throw away the crackers and then all the cheese in her fridge. There was no way she wanted Mr. Mouse to think her apartment was a vacation rental.
“Can you and Axel meet me for lunch in half an hour?”
Cam waited for Bryson Winchester’s reply while he was parked on the side of the road only a block from Grace’s place.
“Sure. Is everything okay?” Bryson asked.
“I don’t know. I want to talk to both of you, and then we can evaluate the situation together.”
“You know I’ll help where I can,” Bryson assured him.
“Great. Let’s meet at Jackson’s bar.” He hung up and began driving in that direction. He wouldn’t mind an early-afternoon beer. His stress level was a bit too high right now.
His friends Axel Carlson and Bryson Winchester, who were both former FBI agents, weren’t long behind him.
“I’m glad you could make it,” Cam told them as they sat down and picked up their menus.
“You don’t ask for help unless it’s serious,” Axel said, putting his menu back down.
“What can I get you boys?”
They put in their order with the waitress, and as she turned to leave, Cam looked into the expectant eyes of Axel and Bryson.
“It might be nothing. I really don’t know. But my brother made a comment the other day that Grace mentioned strange things occurring, and then, when I took her home a little while ago, we walked inside her place and her table was upside down and there were crackers in her cupboard she doesn’t remember buying. When I stayed over one time, it looked like someone was tampering with her window. Now, if it was just one thing, I might be able to brush it off, but it sounds like several little things have been going on, and I’m beginning to worry. On top of all of this, there’s the fraud case that I can’t discuss the details of, but there are some players in her past . . . well, I wouldn’t put them above using underhanded methods to scare her into silence.”
“What else has happened that you know of?” The way that both Axel and Bryson were giving him their full attention worried Cam. If they thought this was a joke, they’d be laughing it off. There was no laughter, not even the slightest of smiles.
“It’s really nothing major, but she made a comment to Sage that she went to check her mail and thought she’d left the paper in front of her door, but when she came back, it was opened up on her kitchen table. The window has me more worried than just about anything . . . well, that and the fact that someone seems to have easy access to her place, and they aren’t afraid of showing her that.”
“The only way for us to know for sure what’s going on is if we install some security devices—cameras, microphones, a good alarm system,” Bryson said.
“I don’t think she’ll go for any of the above,” Cam replied.
“She doesn’t need to know about all of it,” Axel told him with a wink.
“Dammit, Axel, you can’t say that to me. I’m an attorney,” Cam said with a glare.
“Not right this minute, you’re not. At this moment, you’re just a concerned boyfriend,” Bryson said.
“Not quite that yet, either,” Cam grumbled.
“Isn’t she moving into her new house in a week or two?” Bryson asked.
“Yes, I think at the end of this week or early next week.”
“My buddy is doing the final inspection. I think we can get a few things installed before she gets in there,” Axel said. “In the meantime, we need to make a ‘disaster’ happen at her place so she has no choice but to leave the apartment.”