Holiday Havoc (10 page)

He snagged the chocolate out of the air and turned those stormy-gray eyes on her. “No, that won't work.”

Panic bubbled in her stomach. “What? Why?”

Ben shook his head. “This ‘win a date' contest has been months in the planning. The crew is already here. I—my
employers
—have a lot riding on this. I'm not going to let them down.”

He popped the chocolate into his mouth. “I'm sorry you don't want to be here, but since you
did
come, you may as well make yourself comfortable. The first event is dinner in four hours. And it's the National Weather Broadcasters Awards dinner. Formal attire.”

“You've got to be kidding me.” Maria stalked back to the window, looked out.

He coughed. Cleared his throat. Coughed again.

She didn't look at him. Didn't want to see Ben Storm with the upper hand once again.

A crash sounded behind her. She whirled around.

Ben had knocked a chair over. He fell to the ground, his hands at his throat. His lips were swollen to twice their normal size, his breath rasping in and out in short, frantic attempts for oxygen.

Maria ran to him, dropping to her knees at his side.
He was still conscious but barely. “EpiPen. Do you carry one?”

“Backpack.” He forced the words out.

Most people with extreme allergies carried a kit, and he'd been carrying a small, black backpack all day. What had he done with it when they came in? There. By the elevator.

She ran for it, her heart nearly beating out of her chest. Grabbing the bag from the floor, she unzipped it as she ran back to him.
Oh, dear God, his lips are blue. Please help him.

“Ben!” She dug through the pack.

Throwing things onto the floor as she went, she tossed out a pack of gum, a small spiral notebook and a tattered Bible, nearly crying in relief when her hand closed around the EpiPen.

She tore the top off the case, pulled the pen out and jammed it into his thigh. Within seconds he took a breath. And so did she.

As his color returned to a less scary-pale version of his normal healthy tan, she pressed an albuterol inhaler into his hand. She pushed to her feet and walked into the kitchen for a glass of water. In the other room, she collapsed against the wall, pressing her shaking hands against her mouth.

Ben roused slightly as she got back to his side. She slid a sofa pillow under his head. “Okay?”

He nodded, but didn't open his eyes. She pulled out the Benadryl she'd seen in his backpack and punched out two capsules, placing them in his hand. “Take these.”

She slid her arm behind his shoulders and helped him sit up enough to swallow the capsules of lifesaving antihistamine. Her heart rate slowly returning to normal,
she peeled off her jacket and threw it on the sofa. “You scared the living daylights out of me. You trying to kill yourself?”

He opened his eyes then, taking a deep breath for the first time in a long few minutes. “No. But I'm pretty sure someone's trying to kill me.”

B
en leaned against the couch, fighting the shakes from the medication. He shot a glance at his date for the weekend. She was so quiet—probably wondering how long it would take her to pack up and get out of Dodge.

Finally Maria shook her head. “Why would you eat that, knowing you have allergies?”

“The resort had instructions about my allergies, just like always. I assumed it would be fine.” He let his head drop back on the cushion, only to jerk it up again when he heard her pushing buttons on her cell phone. “What are you doing?”

“Calling the cops. Someone just tried to kill you and nearly gave me a heart attack in the process.”

He took the phone from her and pressed End.

“Why did you do that?” Her eyes spit fire, but one lone curl escaped from her ponytail and bounced around her face. For some reason, that made him want to smile.

“Someone broke into my home in Atlanta a couple of weeks ago. Before the police ever got to my house, I got a threatening phone call telling me I'd regret bringing the police into this.”

“So? I'm not following. You're not in Atlanta and if
someone's trying to kill you, you need police protection.” She took her phone from his hand.

She was right, but he couldn't shake the fear that calling attention to this would only escalate things with his stalker. He was putting everything on the line this weekend in order to make the changes he needed to make. But none of it would matter if his family wasn't safe.

What could he do? If he called the police, there could be reprisals that no one could predict. If he didn't, he would still be at risk. Then it occurred to him. “You could do it.”

Maria blanched. “I'm not that kind of cop, Ben. I'm a CSI. I work with evidence.”

“It would work. Everyone saw the morning show—they know you're my date. No one would suspect you're actually a bodyguard.”

“Because I'm
not.
” She bounced to her feet, a five-foot-two bundle of repressed energy. “I don't think you're quite getting what I'm saying. I work in a lab.”

His eyes were getting heavy, the effects of the epinephrine wearing off and the antihistamine kicking in. It was an effort for his eyes to meet hers and hold them. Like it or not, he needed her. “Please?”

The word hung in the air as his eyes drifted shut.

“Oh, no you don't.” Maria shook him. “Ben, wake up. At least get on the couch before you sleep it off.”

He shoved upward with his arms and managed to land half of his body on the couch. His eyelids at half-mast, his nonetheless very persuasive eyes met hers and locked on. “Please, Maria? There's more at stake than you know.”

His voice slurred, his eyes closing again as he spoke.
She blew out a breath and scrubbed her fingers over her eyes. Why was this happening?

Oh, yeah. Gabe and Joe had thrown her under this particular bus and they were going to pay. But the question remained, what did she do now?

She grabbed a faux-fur throw from the back of the couch and tossed it over Ben, pausing for only another second to make sure his breathing was okay before she walked to the table. She wasn't allergic to nuts, so there was no danger for her from the chocolates. She picked one up, broke it in half and sniffed.

Really, unless every single chocolate in this elaborate arrangement had been replaced with one with nuts, how could a killer have known that Ben would pick up one of the chocolates that had peanuts in it?

There was a slight residue on the outside of the chocolates, almost as if they'd been brushed or sprayed with something. She needed to know what. A plastic bag in the kitchen would work as an evidence bag. With Ben's reluctance to get the police involved, she wouldn't call the locals, but she could still have her lab take a look at them.

Maria looked at her watch. The formal event started in three and a half hours. She walked into the rooms he'd called a lockout suite. The decor matched the larger penthouse, but on a slightly smaller scale. Soft instrumental Christmas music played from surround sound speakers she couldn't even see.

Her small overnight bag looked very lonely on the enormous king-size bed. She unzipped it, almost afraid to see what the guys had packed for her. Jeans, a couple of tank tops and her favorite old cashmere sweater were at the top of the pile, which was nice.

Not formal.

She
wasn't formal. She was jeans and boots. Dressing up meant lip gloss. Maria dragged a finger across her bare lips. It would take a miracle of epic proportions to pull this off.

A date. And not just any date. What were the guys thinking? She shook her head, frizzy curls flying in all different directions. Oh, she knew what they thought about her—she could handle the truth about herself. She was an independent, occasionally bossy, sometimes cranky, almost always in-charge kind of woman.

The guys had teased her about never having dates. She couldn't fault them on their skills of observation. They were good cops, after all. What they didn't know was that she'd had chances. She'd even taken a few, but when the time came to really make a decision to go for it, she couldn't pull the trigger.

She'd had such a disorganized childhood. Her dad had split when she was pretty young. Not a big deal. It happened to kids all the time—but being bounced from place to place the way she was, her childhood had been chaotic. And yeah, there was still something in her that was afraid of getting left behind by the people who meant the most.

When it really counted, people were unreliable. Chaotic. Science wasn't. It was predictable and safe. Definitive.

The way she saw it, science was God's gift to a messy, messy world. And she used that gift to help other people make sense from their chaos, as science had done for her.

Maria needed science.

But she also knew when science wasn't enough. Right
now, she needed help. It was time to call in reinforcements. She paced the room, stopping to finger a branch on a softly glowing Christmas tree. She couldn't make a firm decision until she had all the information. “Chloe Rollins.”

Maria let out the breath she didn't know she'd been holding. “Chloe, I need help. There are all these events and I don't have clothes.”

She could hear the smile in Chloe's voice, but of all the cops Maria knew, Chloe was the only one with any fashion sense. “What kind of event is first?”

“A formal.” She looked down at her work boots. This was her kind of footwear, not tiny spiked heels with glittery things on them. Blood spatter she could handle. Makeup? Not so much. “Never mind, I don't think I can do this.”

“If you
don't
do this, you will never hear the end of it from those guys at the precinct.” Chloe was a detective and worked with those same guys, but obviously she was siding with her gender in this fight. “Here's what I want you to do. As soon as you get off the phone with me, call the spa. Have them do…everything. It will be expensive—also worth it. Promise, Maria.”

“I promise. And the clothes?” Maria felt like a preteen girl talking to her much cooler, hipper older sister.

“You let me take care of the clothes. I'll see you in two and a half hours. Don't worry.” Chloe clicked off.

Don't worry.
Maria looked through the open door at the man sleeping on the couch in the living room. Easier said than done.

How many times had Ben told himself the exact same thing when it came to dealing with a stalker who appar
ently had been targeting him for some time? He'd come very close to dying today.

She walked a little closer. In sleep, the hard planes of Ben's face relaxed. He looked innocent, young. She turned away. The contents of his backpack still lay tumbled on the floor from her frantic search for the EpiPen. His well-worn Bible was on top of the pile.

Surely he couldn't be all bad, right? Was this who he was? The guy who read the Bible until the pages were slipping from their binding? Her own Bible wasn't nearly as well-used. Maybe she hadn't been reading it as often as she should've.

She smothered a snort. Maybe if she'd been reading hers more often she wouldn't want to smack him with his.

He was right about one thing. He needed help. She still wasn't positive she was the person who needed to give it, but like it or not, she was the person who could.

She slid the key card off the granite countertop and tucked it into her pocket, walked to the elevator and punched the button.

Just what exactly did they do at a spa?

 

Ben swam through a long, dark tunnel toward a ringing phone. Consciousness came slowly. He punched the button. “Yeah.”

“Ben? What is going on? Where are you?” His agent's voice was getting shrill and making Ben's head hurt.

“I'm at the resort, Charlotte. Right where I'm supposed to be.” Ben sat up on the couch. His eyes felt like someone had shoved a couple of grapes in with his
eyeballs. Maybe in a few minutes he could face opening his eyes, but not yet.

“I saw the broadcast this morning. I can't believe they picked that woman. People have to be interested enough to follow this, Ben. If the ratings don't pick up enough to give them the boost they need—”

“Stop.” Maria might not be a supermodel, but she'd saved his life. “Maybe more people will watch because she looks like a normal person, Charlotte. Did you think of that?”

Besides, there was something about her he couldn't quite put his finger on. Those amazing eyes and that spark of intelligence, sure, but there was more. Maybe when his head wasn't so fuzzy he could figure it out.

His agent didn't speak for a moment, a feat in itself. Then she asked, “Are you okay, Ben?”

Ben sighed. “I'm not sure. The stalker got close to me today.”

“How close?” His agent's tone warned him that explosion was imminent, but what else could he say?

“Close enough to try to kill me.” He held the phone out from his ear. As the shrieks dulled to a lower roar, Ben said, “Can we talk about this?”

“We need to pull the plug on this now.” His agent still had a tinge of panic in her voice.

“If I walk away from this event, I walk away from my future.” Ben blew out a breath and opened his eyes. The penthouse apartment was almost dark, except for the glowing lights of the Christmas tree. Where was Maria?

“At least let me send someone to look out for you. Someone large, with muscles. And a gun, preferably a very big gun.”

Ben chuckled and stood. He swayed on his feet a second, the after-effects of the medication, then walked toward the huge expanse of windows. The sun had dropped into the Gulf of Mexico, but a faint pink glow remained in the western sky.

He turned and faced the room—the fancy-pants suite with its marble floor and enormous Italian chandelier. With just a little bit of luck, he'd be trading it all in on Monday for scarred-up wood floors and a swing set in the backyard. He just needed to keep his priorities straight.

“I've got it covered, Charlotte. I've already engaged a bodyguard.” With a few more well-placed reassurances, he managed to hang up with his agent. He switched on a couple of lamps and punched a button that sent the curtains sliding across a hidden track to close out the darkness outside. The door to Maria's suite was closed and behind it he could hear talking as, he hoped, she was getting ready for the evening.

The tux that hung on the back of his bedroom door was one that he'd worn a dozen times or more, but he thought of it now with distaste. He'd much rather be in jeans and a T-shirt, watching a movie and eating microwave popcorn, something some of his coworkers couldn't understand. He knew there were at least a few who would do almost anything to get what he had right now.

Ben had a couple of ideas about who might want to do him harm, but unfortunately he had no proof. What he did have was a feisty CSI on his side, which somehow made him feel less alone.

He picked up his backpack from the floor and began stuffing all the assorted junk back into it, stopping as
he got to the Bible. He held it in his hands, reassured by the familiar weight of it. He carried it with him, not as a talisman, but as a reminder and a challenge. A reminder that God was with him even in the tough times, a challenge to be the person God wanted him to be, even in his crazy life. Sometimes it even worked.

Hopefully a steamy shower would wash away the residual sluggishness from his allergy attack. He had a feeling that he would be needing every bit of awareness he could scrounge. He'd very nearly died today in a moment of inattention. He couldn't let that happen again. There were too many people counting on him for Ben to give up that easily.

One weekend. Everything on the line.