Page 17 of Wicked Heat

“Okay. No Damien and no cops or security types,” she says after a silence so long I’m afraid she’s going to burn through our five minutes “So we put a pin in that while we listen to this next message, then we make a plan. Possible sources for the price they’re demanding. And possible bad guys. I don’t care how crazy, we write them down. And we figure out how that card got into your basket.”

“I haven’t got a clue about that,” I admit. “The basket was on my table the entire time.”

“Not before the signing, though. And I doubt you were paying attention when it was beside you. You were signing and talking to readers, right?”

I nod. “And some readers added their own gifts to the basket. They were all so sweet. I can’t imagine any of them would…”

“Probably not,” Aria says. “They’d have to be really ballsy. But one could have been a plant. Not one of your fans at all. Just someone pretending. Someone trained. Like a pickpocket. Or maybe someone slipped in from the back of the store. The basket was probably in a stock room or something before they gave it to you.”

I shrug. My head is pounding, and I realize I’ve had nothing but coffee since my very early dinner. Before, I was too nervous about the signing. After, too scared. Now, I stand up and go to the kitchen for Ibuprofen. And—because I really need it—my emergency half-gallon of cookie dough ice cream. With two spoons, of course.

“Maybe the store has security cams,” I suggest when Aria joins me at the table. “I’ll ask in the morning.”

Ari nods as she shovels a spoonful of ice cream into her mouth, then talks with her mouth full. “Good plan. Hopefully they’ll have them, you get a pic, and this is all over in a jiffy.”

Over. My stomach twists, but I nod. What Aria doesn’t get—what I’m now absolutely certain of—is that all the shit that happened to me and Anne is never going to be over.

Ari stabs at the ice cream but doesn’t take another bite. “Were you followed from the bookstore? Whoever sent this was probably watching you. I mean, they’d want to know you actually saw that first message, right?”

“Can’t techie types tell that I was on the website?”

“I think they can see that someone is. But how would they know it was you?”

I hadn’t thought about that. “I might have tossed the card thinking it could have a virus,” I muse. “Or maybe the envelope fell out of the basket, and someone picked it up.”

She taps the end of her nose. “Exactly. And since they need to be sure you got it, they must have been watching.”

I glance around the spartan little house I bought for a song because it’s in totally shit shape. I don’t care, though, because I fell in love the moment I saw it. And the idea that someone could be hidden outside, watching and waiting, totally creeps me out. “Nobody followed me.” I say the words firmly even as I try to think back. But the truth is, I wasn’t paying attention.

When I left the bookstore, I was still on my book-signing high. Santa and his reindeer could have been behind me, and I wouldn’t have noticed a thing.

And when I left the coffee shop, I was too wigged out. All I wanted was to get home. It hadn’t occurred to me that someone might be watching. I don’t mention the man who’d been waiting for the woman outside the coffee shop. Aria doesn’t need to know just how jumpy I was. And still am.

“What about inside?” Aria asks. “Anyone standing too close when you ordered?”

“No, no. I wasn’t inside at all. I went to the drive-through, then parked so I could check out the basket. If there was someone sitting in a car watching me, I didn’t notice them.”

That’s true enough. The other man I noticed was standing right by Maisy’s window without a covert bone in his body. For that matter, Ashton was about as overt as a man could be. But why had he come over to talk to me? And why was he there in the first place? He doesn’t even live in Los Angeles.

Ari’s eyes narrow to slits as she leans forward. “Dammit, Bree, tell me what you’re thinking.”

“Ash,” I say. It’s not him—I can’t believe it could be him—but what if it’s him?

“Ash,” she repeats. “Ashton Stone? Damien Stark’s son? That Ash?”

I nod feeling numb. “He was at the coffee shop. But it’s not him. We’re friends. Sort of. I mean, there’s no way.”

Ari’s brow furrows. “And we’re talking about the same Ashton Stone, right? The one who was all over the news for the shit he said when he crashed Stark and Nikki’s vow renewal ceremony?”

She tilts her head as she stares me down. “The friend you almost got up-close and personal with at the airport four months ago?” She punctuates the word ‘friend’ with air quotes.

“I did not.”

“Well, yeah. That’s my point. You left the poor guy with blue balls. Maybe he’s pissed.”

My skin prickles, as if I’ve just been doused with ice water.

“Bree?”