“Fine,” Karissa said. She hated the idea of walking out like this—especially since her inner Paladin was screaming bloody murder—but she was tired of this nonsense. “If I leave now, I can be at the airport and on a flight back to Chicago by this afternoon.”
Giving Jerome a nod, she turned and started for the door.
“There was an understanding when we approached your company,” Patterson said suddenly, stopping her. “You were supposed to stay out of sight and be invisible. It was understood that my company could be destroyed if it got out that someone was trying to kill me. Even worse if it were known that I’d hired an outsider to be my bodyguard.”
Karissa tried not to snort…and failed. Her parents had a habit of agreeing to all kinds of stipulations and never bothering to tell her about them. Not that she would have paid attention to a ridiculous requirement like that.
She turned back around to face the billionaire and his son, pinning them with a hard look. “Any hope that you could keep this quiet evaporated the second the hit man killed your guards. There isn’t a person in your company who’s not aware someone is trying to murder you. Those board members who were just in here are already making plans on how to capitalize on your death if it happens. I’m sure some have already started buying stock in your competitors’ companies.”
Patterson cursed even as his son leaned in and murmured something that sounded suspiciously like “I told you so.”
“You can’t possibly think the hit man followed us to Dallas from Ohio, can you?” the older man asked.
Beside him, Glenn shook his head, his expression indicating how foolish he thought his father was behaving. Karissa couldn’t disagree.
“That’s exactly what I think,” she said bluntly. “This guy has made two attempts on your life already. He knew exactly where you’d be and when you’d be there both of those times, and if it weren’t for a couple of lucky circumstances, he would have succeeded in those attempts. Do you really think a few hours on a plane is enough to make him give up and go away?”
Patterson didn’t say anything.
“Okay,” Glenn said after a moment. “Let’s assume you’re right and this hit man is already here in Dallas. What can we possibly do to stop him? We don’t even know what he looks like.”
“It’s true we don’t know what he looks like,” Karissa agreed. “But we do know exactly where to find him.”
“We do?” Patterson looked back and forth between her, Jerome, and Glenn in confusion. “Where?”
“It seems clear that he prefers to make his move at night and in those locations where he knows you’ll be alone. In the case of the previous two attempts, your office and your bedroom,” Karissa said. “But he also likes to show off and prove he can slip through the tightest security setup. It shouldn’t be that difficult to look at your calendar and figureout those times and places where you’ll be most vulnerable.”
“And then what?” Jerome asked, appearing both doubtful and concerned. “Even ignoring all the supposition and assumptions in your theory, you still haven’t said how this helps us, even if you’re right.”
“If we know where the hit man is likely to strike, it gives us options,” she explained. “At the minimum, we can increase your security during those moments and make sure I’m nearby. But it also gives us the opportunity to put an end to this once and for all.”
Glenn glared at her. “You mean you want to use my father as bait? It’s too dangerous. I won’t let you put him at risk.”
“Your father is already at risk,” she pointed out. “And he’ll remain at risk until we catch the person trying to kill him.”
It looked like Glenn was ready to keep arguing, but his father cut him off. “Ms. Bonifay is right. I have no idea who wants me dead or why, but I think we can accept that this hit man won’t stop until he kills me. So if the best way to stop him is to stick to my routine and lure him into a trap, then so be it.”
Karissa lifted a brow. “Does that mean you’ll make your schedule available to me and allow me access during those times I think you’re at risk?”
If Tristan Bond gave the impression that he’d sucked on a lemon before, Dominic Pattersonlooked like he was sucking on an entire produce section full of the tart citrus fruit, but in the end, he nodded. “Full access at your discretion.”
Karissa breathed a silent sigh of relief before nodding. “Okay, let’s get to work then.”
Fifteen minutes later, she was walking out of the plant, the notebook in her pocket jammed full of notes on the moments over the next several days when Dominic Patterson would likely be targeted, her instincts humming overtime at all the potential kill points. She’d arranged to be close to him during all of those times, plus several other specific moments at random in case the killer decided to change his MO without tripping her instincts.
Her phone rang as she stepped through the gate, Deven’s name showing on the screen. Karissa stopped walking, moving to the side as she took the call. “Please tell me you’ve finally learned something about the hit man.”
Deven and the rest of her family had been working overtime to dig up intel on the hit man ever since they’d been hired. Going up against a killer—especially a supernatural one—without knowing what she was dealing with was basically suicidal. So far they’d found nothing, but since Deven was the company’s resident computer expert, she was hoping that had finally changed.
“Oh, I found out something that will interest you but not about the killer,” Deven said.
Karissa swore if there was a way to hear someone smiling, it’d be happening right now. She was pretty sure she wasn’t gonna like what her brother had to say next.
“What are you talking about?” she asked hesitantly.
“I found an address on your ex-boyfriend,” Deven said, and then hurriedly kept talking as if she was going to interrupt. “I know you said you weren’t planning to ever see the guy again, but I figured you’d like to have an address in case you wanted to check on how he was doing. You know, from that stab wound you told me about?”
Karissa’s first instinct was to hang up. Between the hours spent talking about him last night and the time she’d wasted thinking about him this morning, Hale had taken up way too much space in her head already. But before she could even think of moving her thumb toward that red button on her phone, her mouth was opening and the words coming out.
