Cocky Protector - Kat Mizera Page 0,15
her phone. She looked up when I came in and got to her feet, rushing to me and throwing her arms around me.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I thought it was you… Oh my god, there’s really someone stalking me.”
“Are they still there?”
She shook her head as she started to pull away. “No, they left, but the whole thing is recorded.”
“Let’s sit down, okay?” As much as I liked having her arms around me, I had to focus. “Show me.”
She sank into her chair and pulled something up on her phone. A few seconds later I was watching a shadowed figure moving around her living room. Whoever it was wore a large coat, a baseball cap and gloves. It was hard to see anything distinct about them, but my gut told me it was a woman. The person moved quickly, but with purpose, rearranging Shannon’s pillows so the ones from the couch were on the chair and the ones from the chair were on the couch. It was ridiculous, with no motive I could think of.
“Why would someone do this?” Shannon whispered. “I don’t understand.”
“Me either,” I admitted. “Could it be your ex-husband?”
Her eyes darkened. “He was the one who wanted the divorce. What could he possibly want from me? He has money, a new wife, and a burgeoning career. It would shock me if this was him, as much as I despise the man.”
“What about a man who was interested in you since you moved here?” I asked slowly. “Someone you blew off.”
“No one has asked me out that I’ve blown off,” she said. “I went out with one guy at work and then his father died and he moved back to the U.S. So he left me, not the other way around. Mr. Koelzig at the bakery flirts with me every day, but he’s eighty if he’s a day, and the person in my apartment was much thinner.”
“All right. First thing we’re doing is packing you a bag and going to my hotel. I’ll sleep in the chair, but I don’t want you out of my sight until I get a handle on this.”
“Okay.” She was quiet now, nothing like the furious woman from earlier today.
“It’s going to be okay,” I told her. “Promise.”
She just nodded, though I could see in her eyes she didn’t quite believe it.
Chapter Eight
Shannon
While I was gratified to know I wasn’t going crazy, now that there was a real threat, I was terrified and sad. It was beyond my understanding that someone could hate me enough to want to scare me like this. Whoever it was had known I was out tonight because all the instances of weird things happening had been when I wasn’t home, except for the night my phone had been temporarily missing. I had no way of knowing what their end game was, but it couldn’t be good and now not only was I frightened, but I was embarrassed by my behavior towards Ace as well.
He’d come to Cologne at my mother’s request to help me, and instead I’d accused him of being the bad guy and gotten bent out of shape over my stupid diary. In the grand scheme of things, that had been ridiculous. Yes, he’d invaded my privacy, but that was nothing compared to someone possibly trying to hurt me.
“Whatever you’re thinking,” he said as we walked toward my apartment. “Don’t. This isn’t your fault.”
“How do you know?” I asked. “What if it’s because I gave a kid a bad grade and they committed suicide or something and now their father wants revenge?”
He glanced at me. “Has that happened?”
“Not that I know of, but what else could it be? I honestly don’t think this has anything to do with my ex, and I don’t have enemies that I know of. I was a kindergarten teacher in D.C. and now I teach high school literature.”
“Your family? Your mother? Your father probably had enemies.”
I stiffened. I hated the idea that my father had enemies. He’d been one of the best human beings I’d ever known and I wasn’t sure I’d ever get over his death.
“I know you don’t want to hear that,” Ace continued after a moment. “But we have to consider every possibility.”
“I suppose.” I unlocked my apartment and Ace walked in ahead of me, turning on lights and pulling a gun I hadn’t been expecting from his pocket. He checked closets, the bedroom, the bathroom, and under the bed. Then he stuffed the gun back in his