climbed up onto her knees again, her gaze flitting over to the news vans and photographers and the mountain of a man keeping watch over them. Would they really try to intrude on the family’s privacy with Trip standing guard?
Her father apparently thought so. “Mr. Mayweather is going to send your stepmother and stepsister on to the house so that the press corps will follow them. Then he’ll come back for you to lay the flowers on the grave.”
“What about Kyle?”
“Oh, yes.” His gaze darted over to Kyle Austin, jogging down the hill. Charlotte saw her blond-haired stepbrother collapse his umbrella, climb into his white Jaguar and speed away from the service. She had no time to speculate where he was going in such a hurry because Jeffrey was pulling an envelope from inside his jacket and sliding it through the crack in the window. “Kyle said a man handed this to him, but he needed to get back to the office, so he asked me to deliver it to you.”
Charlotte plucked the envelope from his fingers. “What man?”
“He didn’t know him, but he said he had on a uniform of some kind. Your name is on the envelope.” Jeffrey shrugged. “I’m assuming it’s a condolence?”
She turned it over to see her name neatly typed on the front. But there was no return address, no glimpse of handwriting to give her any clue as to who it might be from. Maybe this was Trip Jones’s idea of sending her an apology?
Only, he wasn’t the one who needed to apologize.
She pulled the envelope into her lap and tried to be civil. “Thank you, Jeffrey.”
“No problem.” Something buzzed into the earbud he wore and he answered with a “yes, ma’am” before pulling away. “Sorry to intrude on your privacy, Miss Mayweather, but I’d better get to the estate and make sure everyone’s ready when the guests arrive. See you there.”
Probably not. Charlotte rolled the window up and sat back to open the envelope and pull out the neatly folded letter inside, alternately checking out one window and then the other for any sign of her mysterious pen pal. So a man in uniform had given it to Kyle. One of the security guards? Someone on the florists’ staff? A courier? Police officer? Trip?
Or someone very different.
It’s your turn, Charlotte.
All those brains, yet you never saw me coming.
I’m here now. Watching. Waiting.
The old man couldn’t stop me from getting to you.
No one can. I’ll take what you owe me and enjoy watching you squirm.
Scared yet?
“Oh, God.” The silent assault pushed the blood to her feet, making her feel dizzy, light-headed. Her vision blurred the vile words as she crumpled the letter in her fist. “Max?” She instinctively reached for the dog. “Max?”
He hopped onto the seat beside her and she hugged him tight. But she still felt cold, isolated, afraid.
“Why is this happening to me?” she whispered into the dog’s fur, rocking back and forth. “Why does he want to hurt—?”
The phone in her coat pocket rang and she screamed out loud. Max barked but licked her hand as her shaking fingers dug into the pocket of her coat.
It rang again, the chirping sound creeping along her skin and raising goose bumps. It was him. She knew it was him and she answered anyway. “What?”
A single, satisfied breath. And then, “Did you get my message?”
“Stop this.” Anger and confusion colored her plea. “I’m not like other people. I can’t handle this.”
Another soft breath ended in a low-pitched laugh. “Don’t you think I know that?”
Charlotte slapped the phone shut and hurled it across the limo.
It started ringing again as soon as it settled into a carpeted corner of the floor. “Stop it!”
She snatched Max’s leash and shoved the car door open. Her feet slipped on the red bricks that lined the road, and she grabbed onto the door handle to keep from falling. One shoe came off and tumbled into the ditch. She didn’t care that her stockings were soaking up the oily residue on the asphalt. She had only one thought in mind as she spun around to search the hillside. “Dad?”
Her gaze darted from umbrella to umbrella, from marker to marker. She needed the cool rain splashing her face to clear her senses enough to realize that she’d just captured the attention of half the people milling through Mt. Washington.
For an instant, Charlotte froze. Her skin heated with embarrassment, her thoughts raced with panic. The man who’d called her was here. Watching. Taking delight in her phobic reaction to his threats.
Stay in the moment, Charlotte. Don’t let him make you crazy.
What a fool she was. Just go home. Don’t give him the satisfaction of seeing you like this.
Using her hand more than her vision to guide her, she tugged Max’s leash and sidled around the front of the car. She knocked on the driver’s window, peered inside behind the wheel. Empty. Where had he gone? This wasn’t part of the plan.
“Did you need me, Miss?”
The smell of smoke filled her nose as she twirled around. “My father gave you specific instructions to wait …”
Uniform.
“I was just taking a cigarette break, ma’am. Union allows it. I was right over there.”
She read the name on his chest beneath the event company’s logo. Bud.
She didn’t know any Bud.
“Did you …?” She raised the crumpled note in her hand. “Did you give this to my brother?”
“Ma’am?” Bud tucked a toothpick into the corner of his mouth and frowned. “Is something wrong?”
“Charlotte Mayweather!”
She turned to the sound of the voice. Snap. A bright light flashed in her eyes and she jerked her face away.
“Hey, pal.” Bud in the uniform stepped between her and the photographer who was trying to snap another picture. “You leave her alone.”
Move.
The photographer with the receding hairline wasn’t the only reporter calling her name. While he traded curses with Bud, Charlotte blinked her eyes clear and looked over the hood of the limo, seeking out a familiar face. Any familiar face.
Red hair. “Audrey?”
The moment she spotted her friend hurrying down the hill with Alex Taylor at her side, Charlotte limped around the car on one shoe. With a click of her tongue to command him, Max leaped over the ditch with her and scrambled up the hill.
Another light flashed in her peripheral vision and she turned up the collar of her trench coat, pulling her head in like a turtle and skirting past a black-marble marker to reach her friends.
“Charlotte, what’s happened?” Audrey wrapped her up in a hug and Alex’s strong arms folded around them both.
“He called me on my new phone. He’s here.”
Alex urged them both down the hill toward the cars, his chin tipped toward the microphone on his collar. “Come to my location now,” she heard, as he guided them across the ditch. “And get those photographers back. Lassen, you son of a …” Alex pulled back and pressed a kiss to Audrey’s temple. “Get her in the car while I take care of this rat.”
With Audrey’s arm around her shoulders, they turned toward the limo. “Steve Lassen