Ellis nodded his agreement. ‘Of course. That’s a good start.’ He pulled out his BlackBerry and began to type. ‘Martin is the man you want to talk to. I’ll send you his information. He’s discreet, thorough. He’s the best in the business. He’ll take care of it for you.’ He sent the message, stuck his BlackBerry back in his pocket, and looked up at Garrett. ‘You’ve got to tell her, you know? She needs to know what’s going on.’
Garrett nodded. ‘She’s not going to like it.’
Just then the key in the lock turned and Kendra shoved her way in with Dee right behind her. Dee caught Garrett and Ellis’s gaze behind her back and offered a helpless shrug. Then she turned to Ellis. ‘What’s going on?’
‘What is it?’ Kendra added.
Garrett stepped forward toward her cautiously, always careful to stay out of the reach of her bad-ass right hand until he had gauged her mood. She’d been anything but Sally-smiley-face when she’d left.
‘While you were away –’ He nodded to the computer. ‘I got … I mean, Tess got a threatening email.’
‘Let me see.’
‘Kendra, no, don’t.’ Dee reached for her but it was too late.
Kendra shoved into the chair in front of the computer. ‘Threatening emails aren’t that uncommon for celebrities, you know. It probably means nothing.’
Garrett watched the muscles in her shoulders and neck tighten as she read, and he caught the slight acceleration in her breathing. She was good at hiding things, but he was good at finding out what people were hiding. It was one of his gifts, he supposed, but when the color drained from her flushed cheeks, he found himself surprised, and more than a little concerned, that nerves-of-steel Kendra Davis would let her fear show through in such an obvious way. He took a step closer and dropped into the chair next to her. ‘Are you all right?’
She made no response. He could see her pulse beating fast in her throat. When she’d finished reading the email, she pushed back from the computer and sat breathing hard with her eyes still locked on the screen. ‘It’s probably nothing,’ she repeated. But her voice, no matter how hard she tried, wasn’t all that convincing. ‘Just some over-zealous fan. Is this the first one?’
She listened as Garrett told her about Razor Sharp’s history. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said at last. ‘I should have told you. It’s just that up until now they’ve never been this threatening, and up until now, Tess Delaney didn’t have a face. I talked to the police –’
‘They can’t help,’ she interrupted. ‘There’s nothing they can do until … Until something happens. Like I said, this sort of thing’s not all that uncommon with celebrities, and Tess is a celebrity, and you can’t go crying wolf every time someone gets a little pissy or a little …’
‘Kendra? Are you all right?’ Garrett asked. ‘Kendra?’
She stood, then stumbled and nearly fell before Garrett caught her, engulfing her in his arms. He guided her back into the chair, which Ellis had turned around for her. Once she was seated again, she dropped her head between her knees and began to shake.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered between gasps for breath. ‘I’m sorry.’
Dee disappeared into the bathroom and returned with a damp washcloth, which Garrett grabbed away from her and placed across the back of Kendra’s neck.
‘Ken.’ Dee pushed in on the other side of her friend and stroked her back. ‘Ken, you know it’s not –’
‘No! No, it isn’t. I know that.’
‘It’s not what?’ Garrett said, gripping Kendra’s hand nearly hard enough to break bone. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Kendra had a stalker before and –’
‘Shut up, Dee,’ Kendra managed between gulps for breath. ‘It’s not him. That’s over with. It can’t be him, and you know it.’ She forced herself to sit up, still gripping Garrett’s hand for dear life. His insides twisted in anguish when he saw the pale transformation of her face, the haunted look in her eyes. ‘This man has had contact with Tess, always contact with Tess. He doesn’t know who I am. He just thinks I’m Tess, that’s all. It has nothing to do with what happened before. That’s not possible.’
‘What happened before?’ Garrett dropped to his knees in front of her on the floor, both her hands gripped in his. He couldn’t stand the thought that anyone could transform the indomitable Kendra Davis into such a state.
She jerked her hands away and shoved to her feet. The washcloth fell to the floor with a muted plop. ‘It doesn’t matter what happened before. It has nothing to do with what’s happening now. I just overreacted because I’m a little neurotic, that’s all. And my friend there –’ she nodded to Dee ‘– has a very big mouth.’