an amazing panoramic look at the beach, waves lapping the shore.
Any other time, she’d walk out onto the deck and let the salt-water breeze lick her skin. But not today.
A year ago, Casey had been conducting research on an article in which she hoped to expose the enormous salaries of heads of charities and non-profit organizations. Little did she know that in the process she’d be led down a money trail, following the money behind one Will Tannin, CEO of Inner City Aid in Portland, Oregon, and discover his duplicity. Tannin had an affair with a woman who’d sought aid through the organization. She’d given birth to his son, and though he refused to acknowledge the relationship, he paid the woman to keep quiet.
Casey hadn’t gathered the evidence she needed to prove the money he paid the woman had come from the charitable funding, but she’d been working on that when she’d had to leave Oregon. Since Casey’s exposé, Tannin had lost his job, his wife and family and his home. Though he had not been charged with a crime yet, his life had been destroyed.
Four months ago, Tannin began his attempt to systematically destroy Casey’s life and had progressed to disrupting her career and credibility. His first act began when she discovered the hard drive on her home computer destroyed along with all backup files. Then her email had been hacked, and no matter how many times she changed the service provider or her password, her email address was used as spam to send pornography. So, she could live without email for a while.
The little things began to add up. Though the police could not identify the perpetrator, Casey knew it was Tannin. He’d threatened to destroy her life little by little.
She no longer answered her phone. No matter what the caller ID said, even if it was a friend calling, she would hear only the heavy breathing until she hung up. Tannin had called in a serious favor or paid someone in the world of hackers who knew what they were doing.
But why? Why would anyone go to that much trouble? Maybe Tannin had wondered the same about her unraveling his life.
Fine. She’d keep digging until he was arrested. But during the digging she discovered something else about Tannin—for years he’d been under the care of a psychiatrist for antisocial personality disorder, or rather, he was an abusive psychopath.
She’d done an exposé on the wrong man—Will Tannin had snapped. She would have done less harm by taking a baseball bat to a nest of killer bees.
The small interruptions in her everyday life were a nuisance, but a week ago, Tannin had hacked into the newspaper, changing a story she’d written in order to damage her professionally. Eddie had then told her to get out until everything died down. The newspaper couldn’t afford to fight off a madman, especially when the police could find no proof to arrest him.
That’s when Tannin had gone the next step and explained to Casey how and when he would kill her.
THREE
To be safe. That’s all she really wanted.
She’d made the right decision to come here. Her mother and father had been killed in a car accident years ago, and Aunt Leann was the only real family Casey had left. Her aunt had had the foresight to send Casey the key to their home on the beach while she and Uncle John traveled Europe. Casey had taken the key and grabbed a few necessary items then fled her home, her friends and her job.
Casey tugged out one of the low-calorie frozen dinners she’d stocked the fridge with yesterday and shoved it into the microwave, thinking she needed to find out more about the ice company.
She sighed, knowing she had to quit her insane need to uncover a story, no matter the cost. While she ate her dinner, she began the process of creating a completely new email screen name. One more step away from Tannin.
Relaxing against the chair back, she rolled her shoulders, easing the tension in her neck. The view from the living-room window had grown dark. She hadn’t noticed that night had fallen.
Casey rose calmly from the dinner table where she’d set up a temporary office with her laptop, and moved to the large window that provided the ocean view. She stared out, again, only this time instead of seeing waves lapping the shore, complete darkness stared back along with her reflection. The sun had set, and she’d missed the moment.
She turned the lights down in the house, hoping to gain a better look outside without her reflection. For a few seconds, she searched the blackness, but could see nothing except a few lights in the distance—probably a fishing boat or two. She wondered if Tannin could be out there somewhere, watching her. She couldn’t shake off the sense that someone was, in fact, observing her.
Despite everything she’d been through, the idea still seemed a little paranoid. After all, she’d driven almost twenty hours, putting over a thousand miles distance between her and Tannin. He couldn’t know where in the country she was.
The strangeness of today fresh on her mind, she shoved the hair from her face, wondering if she might have something more than Will Tannin to worry about.
“Get the interview and you’ve got a job,” Danny had said.
Get in and get out, leave the rest of it buried.
She began the chore of tugging the heavy window treatments over the vast expanse of glass until it was completely covered.
A sound from somewhere in the house startled her. Casey froze.
Holding her breath, she listened and heard the noise again. She spotted a large ballerina figurine on the end table. She could use it as a weapon if needed. She lifted it.
It was heavy enough.
It would do. Except … Was it a Lladro?
Casey cringed for half a second and looked around her for something less expensive, but there wasn’t anything except pricey-looking décor and figurines accenting the room. She hadn’t even noticed until now.
Aunt Leann would understand, since Casey’s life could be at stake.
Jesse allowed the waves to wash up against his feet and ankles, soaking his running shoes, as he held the golden retriever’s leash. He stared through his night-vision binoculars at John Helms’s house, not seeing much now that Casey had closed all the curtains. Finally, he jammed them into the pack he wore around his waist and continued his jog, Simon at his side.
She’d looked out into the darkness, a strange expression on her face, before tugging the curtains to the center of the window from one side and then moving to the far side to start the process over again. He’d watched her the entire time. Her trim figure didn’t seem equal to the task, but she managed. There was something in the way she acted when she closed the curtains, like she expected someone was watching her—and little did she know that he was.
Beautiful blond strands hung around her face, her expression one of both defiance and fear—not much change from when he’d come across her on the loading dock and rescued her. Though she probably didn’t think of it like that.
Why was John Helms’s niece staying in his home while he was gone? Not so unusual—but then why had she appeared to slink onto the loading dock in need of an interview with him? At the time he had been inclined to believe her explanation, wanted to believe it, if he were honest. Anything more would be trouble. Then he’d found out about her background.
An
