style="font-size:15px;"> “Is something wrong?” he asked.
She gasped and whirled, one shaking hand holding out some little gizmo. Mace, Noah realized belatedly, or pepper spray. He also took in the shock that dilated her eyes. And then his gaze went past her.
“What the hell...?” he murmured.
She seemed to sag. “It’s...the windshield, too.”
He walked around her car and saw.
MISS ME YET? in enormous capital letters. The writing reminded him of the Just Married he’d sometimes seen in the back windows of cars also festooned with dangling cans or streamers.
“Never given a woman a valentine before,” he remarked, “so maybe I’m not an expert, but I can’t say this one strikes me as very romantic.”
Cait’s laugh sounded semi-hysterical. “No,” she agreed. “Romantic is the last word I’d use.”
He looked at her. “Do you know who did this?”
She closed her eyes. After a moment, she gave a stiff little nod.
She was not only shocked, but scared, Noah diagnosed. “No sign of him?” he asked.
“No, but I didn’t exactly mount a search.”
“I’m glad to hear you had the sense not to poke around all by yourself in a deserted parking garage for the asshole who’d do this,” he said grimly. “Stay put.”
He didn’t consider her a meek woman, but she nodded in acquiescence.
It didn’t take him long to determine that they were alone down there. Had been alone. As he walked back toward her, the elevator disgorged five people, two of whom separated from the pack, going straight for their vehicles, while the other three stood talking.
“Oh, God.” Cait sounded frantic. “I don’t want them to see this.”
“No.” He took an experimental swipe over the heart and discovered the color didn’t come off on his finger. “You can’t drive the car like this.”
“No. I’ll call Colin.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll take you home.” He frowned. “I’ve got a tarp. I can toss it over your car.”
She thanked him.
He wasn’t parked far away. It took him only a minute to unlock the rear of his Suburban and grab the heavy canvas tarp he’d been using to keep the cargo space clean when he hauled construction materials. Returning, he found her staring at that damn pierced heart as if she couldn’t tear her eyes away. Noah pulled the tarp over her car, glad to hide it from her gaze.
“I thought you were new in town.”
Her mouth twisted as her eyes met his. “I am.”
Seeing how frail she suddenly looked, he shook his head. “Come on.”
He circled around in case she needed a hand getting in with those damn heels. Or maybe so he could catch a glimpse of an extra few inches of thigh as she hiked herself up.
Once in, he started the engine but didn’t release the emergency brake. “All right, what’s the deal?” he asked.
Her glance was swift. “Does it matter?”
“Yeah, I think it does. Was this meant to be fun? Some kind of prank? Or should we notify the police and have your car fingerprinted?”
Staring straight ahead, she chewed on her lower lip. Finally she let out a long breath. “I’ll tell Colin and see what he thinks. I hoped...”
Noah waited.
She still didn’t seem to want to look at him. “An ex-boyfriend has been stalking me. It’s one of the reasons I didn’t want to stay in Seattle to finish my dissertation.”
Anger balled in his gut. “Define stalking.”
“Mostly following me. Popping up everywhere I went. I changed health clubs. He’d show up at my new one. Trail me through the grocery store. That kind of thing.”
Mostly following? The tension in her voice told him there was substantially more.
She turned her head, her eyes still dark with unhappiness. “I could tell he was getting mad. The last time I was coming out of my health club after an evening class and he was waiting at my car.”
“Tell me you hadn’t gone out alone.” His voice sounded like the crunch of gravel.
“Well, I did,” she said with a spark of defiance. “Until then, he really was just a nuisance.”
He gripped the steering wheel hard. “Until then.”
Her eyes shied from his. “When I said no again, that I didn’t love him and he needed to accept that, he, well, sort of threw a temper tantrum.” She paused. “Did throw a temper tantrum. He was wearing heavy boots, and he kicked my car, over and over. He did a lot of damage to the body.”
Goddamn. The thought of those boots slamming into her little car had Noah’s whole body rigid with the need to do battle. Useless, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. He didn’t have to be a psychologist to know the ex-boyfriend had wanted to hurt her, not the car.
“And while he was doing this?”
“I dialed 911, of course! What do you think, I’m stupid?”
“Was he arrested?”
“Some people were coming out of the health club, and he took off. The police did charge him later and he did some kind of plea deal. But, um, the last thing he said was that he’d never accept losing me.”
“And that’s when you decided coming home to your cop brother was a good idea.”
“Well...yes.”
“Does Colin know about this creep?”
She visibly winced. “Um...no. I really did hope Blake wouldn’t follow me. He has a job. I can’t imagine what he’s thinking!”
“How long had this been going on?”
“Like...six months?”
He swore under his breath and reached for the gearshift. Having backed out, he then punched in the code to open the iron grill of the gate, closed at night. Within moments, he was driving through downtown, which had gone pretty well dead except for a few places like Chandler’s that stayed open until eleven on weeknights.
Cait was quiet for close to five minutes. Then, “Do you know where Colin lives?”
“Someone pointed his place out to me.”
Another couple of minutes passed. “Will you say something?” she burst out.
“Better
