Jesse’s turn to narrow his eyes. Did she suspect something?
Casey held her smile in place while Jesse opened the door for her. “When can I come back for the interview, then?”
“I’ll be starting on a sculpture for the competition in a couple of days. Come back then and we’ll talk. Just stay outside of the loading dock.” He smiled down at her as she strolled through the doorway, passing him, and she caught a whiff of his cologne. Nice.
“I’ll escort you out this time so you won’t get lost,” he said, closing the door behind him. “Next time, I’ll show you the side entrance to my studio.”
He kept pace with her as they made their way down the long corridor. Several doors along this hallway had windows, and Casey glanced through each one as they passed.
“What exactly does Helms Ice and Trucking do? Well, besides create ice sculptures,” she asked.
Jesse chuckled. “The ice division of the company makes and delivers ice, including dry ice, all over Southern California. The trucking side delivers frozen goods via refrigerated semis.”
“And which division do ice sculptures fall under?”
“I’m on the ice side, or rather, a small catering side. The competition I’ve been asked to enter is part of the company’s efforts to grow that part of the business. It’s good publicity.”
“Is there more than one ice sculptor, then? Surely, you can’t do all this alone.”
“I have an assistant. Someone who works with me. I suppose if the demand for ice sculptures grows, we’d have to hire more, yes.”
Casey found herself relaxing a little. He was easy to talk to. This was starting to feel more like the interview she’d wanted. He opened another door for her, and Casey walked into the reception area.
He followed her then leaned against the tall reception counter. The brunette receptionist who’d been there earlier was now gone.
“Well, I guess this is it, then,” Casey said, feeling a little awkward, though she wasn’t sure why. Too bad she couldn’t interview him right now. Would the promise of an interview be good enough for her editor, Danny?
“For now.” Jesse smiled, but the walls he’d momentarily dropped were up again. “Here’s my card. Call me in a couple of days and I’ll meet you here.”
She wanted to watch him walk away, but it appeared he was intent on seeing her leave the premises. Again, she got the sense he wanted her gone—and fast.
Casey gave a little wave then exited the door.
Once in the parking lot, she hurried to her car and clambered in. She tossed her bag on the passenger seat and all the stuff inside—paper, gum wrappers and even her wallet—spilled onto the floorboard.
Casey couldn’t reach her new TracFone, which had slid to the floor on the other side of the seat, just out of reach.
Of course.
She got out of the car and walked around to the other side, opened the door and shuffled through the junk to get her cell.
After she scraped everything except her phone back into her bag, she shoved the length of her hair behind her shoulder and climbed back into the driver’s side.
She skimmed the contacts listed.
But why? Force of habit, she supposed. Since fleeing Oregon, everything about her life had changed. She’d better get used to it.
Who was she going to call? Not Eddie Morris, her editor in Oregon who’d sent her away on a leave of absence until Will Tannin gave up on destroying her, taking the newspaper with him. What would she tell him? She had stumbled upon a possible exposé but she wasn’t about to tackle it?
Maybe she should call Danny Garcia, the editor who’d promised to hire her if she could get this story about the ice sculptor. No. She’d savor her almost-job contingent on her almost-interview for a while.
Meg. Her best friend expected a weekly update. But Meg could wait.
Casey needed to catch her breath. Gather her thoughts. She rested her head against the seat to take a calming breath. Could it actually have been a week ago that she’d driven all the way from Oregon to a little town on the outskirts of San Diego in order to hide?
Or “fall off the grid,” as Eddie had put it.
Once settled in Aunt Leann’s home, she’d marched right into the office of the Orange Crossings Times to ask for a job. As it turned out, the editor was in the midst of chewing out one of his reporters because he’d not been able to breach the gatekeeper at Helms Ice and Trucking Company. With the ice-sculpture competition approaching next week, he needed a story.
All Casey had to do was tell him she could get the story because her uncle owned the company. Since it was a simple human-interest story there wouldn’t be any conflict of interest.
His response? If she got the story, she had a job.
She opened her eyes and noticed someone watching her from the far corner of the building. Black hair flashed then disappeared. She recognized him. The cell-phone guy. The worker had been watching her.
Her pulse inched up.
Why would he be watching her?
Or had Casey’s stalker experience with Tannin put her reporter instincts on overdrive, and she was simply having knee-jerk reactions to everyone who so much as glanced her way?
Would she ever recover?
Shifting her lime-green Volkswagen bug into Reverse, she backed out of the parking space and exited the lot as fast as her car would go.
Although disappointed she couldn’t get an interview with Jesse today, she knew these things took time, and she’d see him again in a couple days. She allowed a smile to come to her lips when she remembered his rugged face and fierce blue eyes, teasing her. He’d actually had the audacity to flirt with her.
He had charm, that was a fact. The guy was dangerous in more ways than one. She turned on the radio, shoving thoughts of Jesse the ice sculptor aside as she headed to her aunt’s beach house, just up the road from the ice company. She would call Meg when she got there.
Taking a left onto Shoreline Road, the frontage road that led to the beach, she continued to watch her rearview mirror, looking for a tail—a habit she’d gotten into while fleeing Oregon. She didn’t think she’d ever lose it.
In three minutes she could relax behind the safety of the beach-house walls, alarm system on alert.
She pulled into the driveway and then all the way into the garage. While the automatic garage door began its slide to the ground, shutting her off from the neighbors, she glanced at her rearview mirror and noticed a man across the street, replacing a window in a house. He was watching.
Relax. He was probably curious if not suspicious. Completely normal.
Once inside, she kicked off her shoes. Though at first she planned to call Meg, the view of the
