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The room emptied. Mack introduced Dru to Morris, then Dru settled into one of the leather chairs facing the desk. Mack opted to stand near her elbow. Gray took the remaining chair, crossing an ankle over a knee. His big athletic shoes looked brand new, as if he’d put them on for the first time an hour ago. Maybe that came with the territory for a professional football player. Women. Glory. New Nikes.

  Mr. Morris’s rimless glasses looked as expensive as the designer business shirt he wore. He appeared to be in his fifties, fit, with tidy auburn hair that had begun to gray and thin.

  Except for more of the blue, green, and ivory carpeting, Morris’s office didn’t continue the Rah! Rah! chant. The furniture was serviceable. The lighting, fluorescent. The desk supported neat stacks of paper and three family photos. On this second Friday of November, the bright and cloudless sky beyond the windows behind Morris’s desk camouflaged a cold day that wouldn’t reach fifty degrees.

  “Weston Kinney will be coming by later today to introduce himself,” Dru told Morris. “He’ll be working the 10:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. shift on the days that Mack and I will be working. Other agents will rotate in for us on our days off.”

  “Good.” Morris centered a notepad in front of him, picked up a pen, then leaned back in his chair to take Dru and Mack’s measure. “I wanted this chance to meet you so that we can get communication going between us. I’d like a lot of back and forth on this.”

  “Yes, sir,” Mack agreed.

  “Have you both read through the threatening letters Gray’s received?” Morris asked.

  “We have,” Dru answered. Black 18-point Arial font printed by an inkjet printer onto plain white paper. The letters were always mailed in ordinary business envelopes that could be purchased at any Walmart. So far the fingerprints the police had salvaged from the envelopes all traced back to employees of the U.S. Postal Service. Both the mailing address and the return address were always printed onto labels in black 11-point Arial font.

  “Gray, remind me how long it’s been,” Morris said, “since you started receiving the letters.”

  “More than a year.” Gray appeared slightly bored, like he had a pressing game of golf to get to now that practice had wrapped up for the day.

  Irritation with him simmered beneath Dru’s cool facade. Sweetheart? Really? “I heard that you threw out the first several letters.”

  “Yeah. I’ve been getting mail from people who don’t like me since college. If letters are really nasty, I hand them off to team security. If they’re just ordinarily nasty, I throw them out.”

  “When you first started receiving letters from this individual . . .” Mack prompted.

  “They were just ordinarily nasty,” Gray answered. “I tossed them.”

  “What types of things did those early letters say?” Mack asked.

  “I hate you, you’re worthless.” The expression Gray turned on Dru seemed to say, What’d you think? That this job was all roses? You’re not that naïve. “They were short, just like all the letters have been. A few sentences.”

  Morris leaned forward, settling his forearms on his desktop. “Here at the Mustangs, we differentiate between critical comments and actual specific threats toward our players.”

  As did the law, Dru knew.

  “Recently, the letters from this individual have turned into threats,” Morris continued. “We’ve seen the situation escalate in other ways, too. For example, Gray used to receive the letters only at home. Lately the person who’s sending the letters mails some here. Some to Gray’s lake house, some to his cabin in Colorado. Even to his mother’s house in Mullins.”

  “Do the letters arrive at the locations when you’re there?” Dru asked Gray.

  “Yes.”

  “Which is why we’ve come to the conclusion that this individual is stalking Gray,” Morris stated. “How often did the letters come at the beginning, Gray?”

  “Over the first eight or nine months, the letters came every month or two. Then it was every few weeks. Since our first preseason game, I’ve been receiving a letter at least once a week, sometimes more.”

  “Anthony Sutton told us that the letters are mailed from a variety of locations,” Dru said. Anthony, the owner of their agency, had a background in special ops and wasn’t the kind of person you’d want to attempt to rob in a dark alley.

  “Yes,” Morris answered. “Since the time Gray told us about the letters, we’ve been keeping record of the postmark on each envelope, as well as scanning the letters themselves before turning them over to the police. The letters have come from places as far as a four-hour drive from here in every direction. The return address is always that of the stadium where we play.”

  “Who have you been working with in the Dallas PD?” Mack asked.

  “Detective Carlyle,” Morris answered. “He’s good, but he doesn’t have any leads yet.” He tapped his pen twice against his notepad. “Which is why we brought in Sutton Security. Until this thing is resolved, we’ll all feel better knowing that Gray has protection.”

  Except Gray himself, according to what he’d already told her. Gray met her eyes. A trace of cynicism lit the green depths.

  “Anthony Sutton mentioned that you’ve noticed an older-model maroon truck following you,” Dru said to him.

  “I haven’t seen it following me, exactly. I’ve seen it parked on a street near where I live. Then outside the stadium, and then at a restaurant I was leaving the night before last.”

  “Did you get its license plate number?” Dru asked.

  Gray nodded. “When I saw the truck outside the restaurant, I wrote down the license plate number and gave it to the police. Apparently, the truck’s registered to a little old lady who lives in Bonham, Texas.”

  “Make of the truck?” Dru asked.

  “Ford.” He smiled, looking genuinely entertained for the first time. “Do you think a little old lady is my stalker?”

  “It could be,” Dru answered.

  “I think it’s more likely that it’s a coincidence that I happened to notice a couple of maroon trucks around.”

  In real life, coincidences happened. But in Dru’s line of work, coincidences were taken seriously and with a heaping dose of investigation. She addressed Morris. “We’ll look into the maroon truck, and we’ll work out threat assessments on anyone known to have animosity toward Gray.”

  “The entire fan base of the Cowboys?” Gray asked dryly under his breath.

  She forged ahead. “We’ll surveil the environment when we’re with Gray, and we’ll also run a fair amount of counter-surveillance. In other words, we’ll hide ourselves and observe Gray and the places he visits from a distance in an effort to catch the person who’s following him while they’re in the process of doing just that.”

  “Good,” Morris said. Two more pen taps. “Thank you.”

  “If Detective Carlyle comes up with any information we need to know,” Mack said, “please contact us with it.”

  “We’ll contact you,” Morris assured them. “This is a group effort. Our security team here at the Mustangs can provide you with badges, passes, clearance, whatever you need. The safety of our players is our highest priority.”

  Excluding when those players were out on the field. Then they could thrash each other bloody. It’s what made football so entertaining.

  “I’m hoping that we’ll find Gray’s stalker in short order.” Morris gave Gray a subdued smile. “Gray’s important to this team.”

  An understatement. In the multi-billion-dollar business of the NFL, Gray was as close to priceless to the Mustangs organization as a player could be. They wanted to protect their asset in the same way the Metropolitan Museum of Art would want to protect their Rembrandt. The Mustangs weren’t about to let their Rembrandt get damaged.

  Dru had always liked puzzle-solving. The more challenging and dangerous the puzzle, the better. Gray Fowler, with his thickheaded chauvinism, would surely prove to be a pain. But finding his stalker was going to be a pleasure.

  She moved to rise from her seat—

  “Dru and I were just talking,” Gray said to his GM.

  She resettled herself.

  “I told her that I’d like for the bodyguards to stay low-key. I might tell one or two of my close friends about them, but other than that, I don’t want anyone knowing about them or the letters.” He held steady eye contact with Morris. Clearly, he’d been around the negotiating table a few times.

  “All right.” Morris looked questioningly at Mack and Dru. “What do you think?”

  “Sure, sure,” said Mack, who was naturally easygoing and friendly. Dru wondered how often anyone in Gray’s life piped up and said no to him. Rarely, she’d guess. He probably hadn’t received a tenth of the reprimanding he deserved.

  Gray moved his weight forward in his seat. “This is going to be the story, in case anybody asks. Mack is my new chauffeur. Is that good with you, Mack?”

  “Yeah, man. That’ll give me a reason to buy a chauffeur’s hat. Very cool.”

  “Dru is my new girlfriend,” Gray continued. “If anyone wonders why a woman her age is free several afternoons a week, she and I decided we’d tell them it’s because she teaches preschool.”

  She and I decided? The nerve! Dru straightened as if she had a metal rod for a spine. All the scathing things she wanted to say piled up on her tongue.

  “How old’s Weston, the guy that’ll be working the night shift?” Gray asked Mack.

  “Around thirty,” Mack answered.

  “When Weston’s with me at dinner or clubs or whatever, I’ll just introduce him as a buddy of mine.”

  A stretch of silence descended. Gray made eye contact with each of them, self-assured and forceful.

  Dru longed to tell him how much she loathed his plan. However, she hadn’t known her new client for even an hour yet. It might be wise to attempt a full hour in Gray’s company before opposing him in public. If she gave either Gray or Morris a reason to call Anthony Sutton and ask to have her replaced, she’d instantly be replaced.

  This case was the chance she’d been waiting for, the chance she needed. Remember, Dru? Compromise. Plus a few Advil.

  “Sounds good, Gray,” Mack said admiringly. Mack was a Mustangs fan and couldn’t be trusted to view Gray objectively. “We’ll do our best to accommodate your ideas.”

  He didn’t particularly like his new bodyguard.

  She was about as warm as January.

  Gray had squeezed a lot of living and too many girlfriends to count into his thirty-two years, so he knew what he liked. He liked sweet women who laughed at all his jokes. If he had to pick between a rich girl with a lot of education and a friendly girl with no education, he’d go with the friendly girl every time. He liked curves and easy smiles and cheerful, agreeable personalities. If he said, Want to go to a nightclub? his ideal woman would say, Sure!

  Want to wear my jersey and cheer for me at the next home game?

  I’d love to!

  Would you mind serving my buddies and me drinks while we watch Monday Night Football?

  Happy to!

  Crazy guess, but he didn’t think his new bodyguard would answer any of those questions the way his ideal woman would. He slanted a look across the restaurant, to where Dru sat alone at a table for two.

  An hour ago, they’d arrived at this modern Japanese restaurant near his Dallas neighborhood so he could attend a dinner meeting with a few of the board members of Grace Street. Grace Street was a nonprofit that offered outreach programs for abused women and children. He supported a handful of charities, but Grace Street had become his favorite.

  Dru, who didn’t shy away from offering her opinion, had told him that she saw no need for him to insert his new fake girlfriend into his dinner plans. She’d informed him that she’d go her separate way as soon as they entered the restaurant. Which was how things had gone down.

  The board members were talking amongst themselves, trying to figure out some of the details that had come up regarding his participation in their Winter Family Fun Day event, scheduled for early February.

  He looked down at his small plate. It contained small pieces of sushi, a small lump of ginger, and a small lump of wasabi. Why was everything in Japanese restaurants so small? Did this place have any idea how much he ate?

  Board members still talking. He returned his gaze to Dru.

  She ate politely, one hand in her lap, her attention taking in their surroundings.

  After the meeting with Morris, he’d driven to Sutton Security’s Dallas office. She’d followed him on her motorcycle. She drove a motorcycle. He had a few bikes himself, but his were big. They were the kind of machines you could drive and have a beer afterward and not be made fun of by anyone in the bar. Her motorcycle was an older-model Kawasaki Z750, all black, made for agility and speed.

  At Sutton Security, Dru and Anthony Sutton had questioned him for hours about the idiotic letters, what his blood type was, who his friends and employees were, and about all the people he’d ever come across in his life who hated him. He’d also had to give them addresses, phone numbers, the locations of the places he usually visited in a week, a list of places he’d be going this week in particular, and on and on.

  When Anthony Sutton had excused himself, he’d been alone with Dru, who’d taken the opportunity to lecture him. She’d outlined the dangers he was facing, rattled off statistics about all the ways he could be killed, and tried to convince him to follow her rules exactly in order to improve his likelihood of seeing his thirty-third birthday. He waited for her to finish.

  “Has that little speech scared your other clients into obeying you?”

  “Only the smart ones.”

  “It’s not going to come close to working on me.”

  She scowled in that threatening way she had, and he almost laughed.

  “I’ve got a lot on my plate right now,” he continued. “The only thing I want to care about or have time to care about is winning football games.” So far this season, his team had a seven and two record. “All my energy is focused on one goal. Another Super Bowl title.”

  “It’ll be hard to win the Super Bowl if you’re a corpse.”

  “I told Morris he could hire you guys because it’s in my best interest to get along with the Mustangs admin. But I don’t want to be inconvenienced by you or your security measures. So go ahead and do what you need to do, but I’m going to continue living my life. I’m not afraid of my stalker.”

  “You might take him or her more seriously once—”

  “I’m a corpse? I’d rather be a corpse than bend over backward to do whatever crazy thing it is you want me to do.”

  She reminded him of those lady detectives on cop shows set in New York. She was tough. No nonsense. Intense. He’d only seen her smile once all day, in Morris’s office when she’d pretended to have forgotten his name.

  So far, there were only two things he liked about her.

  One, she was beautiful. When he’d first seen her, he’d had a hard time adjusting to it, her beauty. Her eyes were the color of the light blue water that ran up onto the beaches of the Caribbean island he visited every spring. She was both taller and slimmer than the average woman. She had long brown hair, so dark it was almost black. Her perfect creamy skin didn’t show a single freckle or wrinkle. She looked like an icy European princess.

  Two, he found it sort of . . . entertaining to rile her. She was easy to stir up. And every time he stirred her up, she got all offended and defensive. Her eyes would snap white sparks, her mouth would purse, and she’d look like she was dying to cuss him out, and would have, if she’d been allowed to. He might enjoy hearing her let him have it with both barrels sometime. He’d cornered her into pretending to be his girlfriend mostly because he could tell the idea made her mad, which, in turn, amused him.

  With a face like hers—the cheekbones, the narrow nose, the sculpted chin—she could have been a model or the kind of actress who starred as the babe in action movies. She’d have made a fortune doing either. Instead she was here in this Japanese restaurant tonight, supposedly guarding him.

  A fresh sense of disbelief washed over him. Part of him was still waiting for the crew of a show like Punk’d to jump out of the bushes with their cameras, laughing, and admit that they’d played an elaborate joke on him.

  The small woman protecting the big football player? It insulted him some, the fact that anyone would think him so defenseless that he’d need her as a bodyguard. What could she possibly do for him that he couldn’t do for himself?

  As a young kid, he’d been too adult for his age, responsible, a rule-follower. Then the dirt bag had come into his life.

  He remembered sitting in the back of a closet with Colton, who’d been a kindergartner at the time.

  “You idiot, Gray! What a sorry excuse for a human being. You’re an embarrassment.”

  Gray had put his hand gently over Colton’s mouth and held a finger up to his own lips to tell Colton to be silent. His little brother’s eyes got big and round. Gray drew his knees up and tried to make both of them as small as he could in the closet’s corner. Clothes brushed against his head. His heart beat like fast-running feet.

  “Where are you, boy? Worthless kid!” The door to the closet ripped back, and light fell over them. The dirt bag’s body filled the opening, his face screwed tight by anger. The man had gripped Gray by the upper arm and yanked him out.

  After . . .

  After that, Gray had ditched all the sucking up he’d done when he’d been younger. The polite rule-following hadn’t served him well.

  By ninth grade, he’d finally started to grow into his size. At first, he’d been gangly. His hands and feet and nose had gotten big before the rest of him could catch up. He’d begun wailing on a punching bag in his basement. Midway through that year, his freshman year, a kid had picked a fight with him. He’d finally had a chance to use his size and his new skills. He’d beaten up the kid so badly that he’d knocked him unconscious.

  That fight had given Gray a taste of something he’d never had before.

  Power.

  After that, he’d searched out more fights. He’d started drinking and smoking, started stealing money from his mom’s purse and driving her car. He’d gotten in and out of trouble with the police and school administrators. His grades had tanked because he’d avoided school as much as he’d attended.