“I put out a BOLO on her,” Katy said as she laced up her second shoe.
I froze, and my attention flew from the window to her. What the hell? “You had the police put up a be on the lookout for Cassandra?”
Was there no level Katy wouldn’t go to in order to get what she wanted? She was as obsessed with my ex-girlfriend as me. And would her cousin Anderson, the town’s only detective, even do that for her? Here I was concerned with misappropriation of software and letting Katy have a loaded weapon, but she had the police working for her.
My word. What was the world coming to? We were doomed.
Her face scrunched up as she finished tying her shoe, unaware of my thoughts as the one second of time passed between us. “No, weirdo. With the girls.”
I release a ragged breath, letting it blow through my teeth as I did my best to pretend I didn’t almost pass out from her comment. “Yeah, I’m the weirdo. Let’s just get this run finished. Are you done pampering?”
Katy never ran. Not unless she was running from the police, one of Ridge’s men, or someone else trying to put her in jail. Between her sudden desire to take up the sport and her brand-new running shoes, my suspicions were on high alert.
Super high.
Like DEFCON red.
A smart man would’ve told her no and walked far away so as not to get wrapped up into whatever trouble she was about to cause, but this man had agreed to go in order to stop her before she followed through with any harebrained idea she come up with while unattended.
“When is Pierce getting back from New York?” I asked as I held open the front door to her house for her and then locked it before closing it.
She shook her head. “Oh, he returned last night. Right now he thinks I’m working at the bed-and-breakfast, but I figured I’d take an hour off for a quick run.”
“Uh-huh. That story sounds totally legitimate,” I lied again and vowed not to take my eyes off her until I had her safely locked in Pierce’s mansion.
If I was lucky, we’d do one big block, Katy would get tired, and I’d take her home. I hadn’t been a member of the military like Ridge and the rest of the men who worked in his security firm, but now, as an active team member, he required me to work out and train as much as they did. No way could Katy outrun me in speed or distance.
Hopefully by the time we got wherever she wanted to go, she’d be so out of breath she wouldn’t be able to follow through with whatever her current ridiculous plan might be. The fact she asked me and not one of the women she hung out with at the bakery more than likely meant it her plan included something dangerous.
Katy wasn’t dumb, but she’d definitely gotten smarter about making sure she had one of us with her when she did anything particularly stupid. I figured we had Pierce to thank for her sudden improvement. He was no longer having her trailed everywhere she went, but that didn’t mean we didn’t monitor her.
Where there was Katy, there was trouble.
Katy pretended to stretch for a few seconds on the sidewalk and then together we took off at a slow jog—I mean totally slow. I could’ve walked faster—toward town. At the first road, she turned left, and I followed.
“Don’t you want to follow the beach so we have a good view?”
Everybody ran down the sidewalk that tagged alongside the beach in Pelican Bay. It was the best view we had to offer, possibly the best one on the entire East Coast.
She shook her head. “This road has a better sidewalk.”
Katy had never considered sidewalk quality once in her life.
Most definitely suspicious.
The important question was what would she be getting involved in on this side of town? Frankie Zanetti was definitely working on something off the books, but so far, the only person he’d chosen to let in on his plan was Ridge. Pierce wasn’t planning to buy any new buildings at the moment, so there wasn’t a protest to be had. And besides a few drunk driving arrests and neighbor disputes, we hadn’t had trouble in town in over a week.
Was Katy bored and looking for something to keep her mind busy, so now she was looking for drama?
It didn’t take me long to find my runner’s high, even though our jog barely constituted as running, and I quickly got lost in my head. It wasn’t until Katy spoke again, her words coming between puffed breaths, that I returned mentally to our location.
“Oh… Look…” Katy breathed out and pointed a shaky hand at a house nestled between two larger ones. I bet that’s Cassandra’s… Car,” she pushed out almost one sentence.
And then, when I thought she didn’t have it in her, Katy pumped her legs harder and sped in front of me.
I took off after her. “You snit. How do you know her brother lives here?” I called after her.
It didn’t take me long to catch up, but we were standing at the edge of Cassandra’s brother’s yard by the time I did.
