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‘And just what is that supposed to mean?’ The very quietness of Evan’s words was ominous, sending a shiver of apprehension down Catherine’s spine.
‘Well, you said you’d joined the army to get away from home. Just because you and your parents—or at least your father—didn’t get on it doesn’t mean you can judge my relationship with Dad by the same standards.’
That was definitely below the belt, she admitted privately, but refused to let herself feel guilty. After all, he had only himself to blame—he had started this line of questioning.
‘And now, if you don’t mind, I think we’ve delayed long enough. I’d like to drink my coffee before it’s completely stone-cold—even if you wouldn’t.’
And, not giving him a chance to say any more, she turned on her heel and marched off down the hall, not daring to look back to see the effect her words had had on him.
She had left him with no option but to follow, but she was pretty certain that Evan Lindsay was not the sort of man to let things rest. And from the expression on his face as he set the tray down on the coffee-table in the lounge she was worryingly aware of the fact that, far from appeasing his curiosity, she had in fact only stirred it further.
Privately she cursed her own nervousness, the tension that had driven her to overreact, responding to his questions in a way that had fuelled his interest, fanning it from a slowly smouldering ember to a brightly burning flame that would not easily be extinguished. Her stomach twisted itself into tight, painful knots of apprehension, anticipating with a terrible sense of inevitability the interrogation that she was sure must come.
She didn’t have to wait long. She had barely had time to pour the coffee and hand a cup to Evan, serving him, as their guest, first, as courtesy demanded, before the moment she had dreaded arrived.
Leaning back in his chair with a deceptively convincing display of relaxed ease, he sipped at his drink, his expression thoughtful, then he turned those turquoise eyes on her face once more, the look in them alerting her to what was to come.
‘It’s been a beautiful week hasn’t it?’ he asked easily, and, taken completely by surprise because she had been expecting something else entirely, Catherine could only manage an inarticulate murmur that might have been agreement.
Her father, however, apparently oblivious to the dark, swirling undercurrents she sensed, nodded enthusiastically.
‘Summer’s finally here, it seems—and not before time. Last month was so wet and miserable—hardly flaming June! But it’s certainly making up for it now.’
‘So it seems.’
Catherine knew that she was actually gaping in confusion. She couldn’t believe her ears. Surely Evan didn’t actually intend to conduct a conversation about the weather?
‘And, of course, the light evenings are a real bonus.’
‘They certainly are.’ The darkly sardonic intonation in Evan’s voice grated on Catherine’s raw nerves.
‘Dad-’
Belatedly she had caught on to the path Evan was following, the way his mind was working, and she tried to inject a note of warning into the single word, signalling to her father with her eyes as she did so. But Lloyd seemed oblivious to her concern.
‘Would you like a biscuit, Mr Lindsay?’ she asked, the words hissing from between clenched teeth as she turned a fulminating glare on him.
‘No thanks,’ he returned blithely. ‘But I would like an explanation.’
‘An explanation?’ Catherine’s father frowned his lack of comprehension.
‘Mr Lindsay seems to think that we’re hiding something, Dad. Either that or we’re quite unnatural simply because we happen to care about each other.’
‘But, Cathy, don’t you think—?’
‘No!’ With difficulty she stopped herself from screaming the word at him. ‘I don’t think we should give Mr Lindsay an explanation of anything—not that there is anything to explain…’ She covered herself hastily and clumsily in nervous response to the gleam of triumph that lit up in Evan’s eyes. ‘And even if there was, then it’s none of his business.’
‘Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong,’ Evan inserted blandly, setting down his coffee-cup and leaning forward to emphasise his point. ‘You see, I think your father made it my business when he invited me here on the pretext of discussing matters that could easily have waited until tomorrow.’
‘Made what your business?’ Catherine made one last attempt at pretending that nothing was wrong.
‘I don’t know yet, but I intend to find out. From the moment that I first set foot in this house, it’s been obvious that something is very wrong.’
‘Oh, come now, Mr Lindsay, surely you’re exaggerating? There’s nothing—’
‘Nothing?’
One dark eyebrow lifted in an expression of mocking disbelief, and Catherine had the uncomfortable feeling that even though Evan hadn’t moved from his chair he had, mentally at least, backed her into a very tight corner indeed.
‘All right, we’ll take things logically,’ he said in a dangerously quiet voice. ‘One—your father’s been like a cat on hot bricks all afternoon—barely listening to a word I’ve said, and certainly not giving his work the concentration it deserved.
‘Two—’ he ticked off each point as he made it, using the outstretched fingers of his left hand ‘—he had to rush home to look after his daughter—at five p.m. A time when even a schoolgirl would be safe in the house— especially with the housekeeper there.
‘But three—this daughter isn’t a child, or even an adolescent—she’s twenty-six, and someone who, by her own admission, normally has a place of her own.’
He didn’t miss a trick, Catherine thought despairingly. He’d even picked up on the fact that she had her own flat. It was no wonder that they hadn’t been able to hide anything from him. Oh, why had her father had to bring this particular man home?
‘Shall I go on?’
When Catherine and her father could only stare at him, unable to find a word to say, Evan nodded silently, his mouth tightening ominously.
‘All right—so you have your own home, but for some reason you’re hiding out at your father’s—’
‘I’m not hiding!’
‘No?’
Once more that raised eyebrow questioned the truth of her outburst.
‘Then why did your father feel it necessary to ring the bell—the bell to his own front door—when he arrived? And why did he call out as soon as he came in, if not to reassure you? Why do you jump like a scalded cat at the slightest sound, any unexpected movement?’
Catherine began to feel as if the quickfire questions were in fact blows to her head, making her reel sickeningly.
‘Why did you turn on me as if I was an intruder from an alien planet when I came up behind you in the kitchen? And—last but not least—why, when it’s the hottest week we’ve had all summer, when the temperatures have finally reached into the twenties and the rest of the country is enjoying the long, warm evenings-gardening, having barbecues, or simply sitting outside soaking up the sun—do you have every single curtain in every damn room pulled so tightly closed that a beam of light couldn’t get through if it tried?
‘Either one of you is a vampire and will shrivel up in the heat of the sun, or there’s some other, more disturbing reason for this obsession with privacy.’
He stopped at last, looking straight at both of them in much the same way that the counsel for the prosecution would survey the accused, Catherine reflected miserably, knowing that there was no way she could deny his assessment of events. His case was watertight—and he knew it.
‘So now,’ Evan continued more slowly, sea-green eyes fixed on her face in a way that made her feel worryingly certain that he could see right through her head and read everything that was in her mind, ‘are you going to stop playing silly games and tell me just what all this is about?’
CHAPTER TWO
‘WELL?’
The single, harsh syllable fell into the stunned silence that was the only response Catherine and her father could make to the clear and terrifyingly accurate assessment of the situation he had just given them. There really wasn’t any way they could possibly argue against it, she reflected unhappily.
‘Well?’ he repeated, more emphatically this time.
‘I—don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Stubbornly Catherine clung to her determination not to reveal anything to him.
‘You must have a very vivid imagination,’ she went on, with a touch of airiness that didn’t quite come off, instead making her sound brittle and highly-strung instead of achieving the insouciance she had aimed for. ‘You seem to have cobbled together some sort of fantasy scenario out of a lot of perfectly ordinary facts…’
Her voice failed her as Evan, not bothering to answer her verbally, turned on her the sort of cold, contemptuous look from those aquamarine eyes that made her quail fearfully inside, wanting to curl her arms round her to protect herself. Her earlier impression had been right, she told herself on a wave of unease. If provoked, Evan Lindsay could be a very dangerous character indeed.
‘It’s no good Cathy.’ Lloyd Davies pushed a hand through hair that was just a couple of shades darker than his daughter’s. ‘We can’t keep pretending that nothing’s wrong—’
‘Dad!’
‘We have to tell someone.‘ Her father ignored the reproachful glance she turned on him. ‘And it strikes me that Evan is the sort of man who might be able to help. That’s why—’
‘I don’t think anyone can help!’ The tension that Catherine had been holding in check all evening finally got the better of her, and the words escaped in a despairing rush. ‘Even the police—’
She cut herself off sharply, swallowing down what she had been about to say as Evan’s reaction told her just how much she had given away. The relaxed, almost indolent pose vanished as he sat up straight in his chair, his blue-green eyes fixed on her face.
‘The police?’
Catherine’s heart lurched painfully in her chest, every trace of confidence burned away in the cold fire of those changeable eyes, and she could only nod silently, her tongue seeming to have frozen in her mouth.
‘Why are the police involved in this?’
If he had stayed where he was then perhaps she might have been able to answer him, but to Catherine’s shock and total consternation Evan got up from his seat and came towards her, leaning down to rest both hands on the arms of her chair as he looked deep into her face.
‘Catherine?’
God, she hadn’t realised just how big a man he was— big and imposing and frighteningly strong. He was tough too; the set of his features told her that—the hard, square jaw, the tightness of the muscles around his mouth, the fierce, unblinking stare of those eyes.
A few moments earlier she had wondered what he would be like with the calm, affable veneer he had shown them up to now stripped away and the real Evan Lindsay revealed underneath. Now she was beginning to get some idea of the reality. The civilised finish had worn a little thin, exposing glimpses of a very different man—a man who was very much a force to be reckoned with.
‘Evan—I—’ her father began, but Evan let him get no further, cutting him off sharply.
‘I’m talking to your daughter,’ he flung over his shoulder, sparing the older man only the briefest of glances before turning his attention back to Catherine. ‘Why are the police involved in all this?’
Catherine struggled for some degree of control, her eyes wide and brilliant as sapphires over pale, drawn cheeks as she fought against the panic that was welling up inside her, threatening to take control. Earlier she had been fearful of Evan simply because he was a man, one she didn’t know, but now it was more personal, more specific to him. She recalled how he had told her that he had been in the army, and her imagination conjured up images of all the interrogation scenes in any film she had ever seen, making her shiver in apprehension.
‘You’re frightening me!’ she managed on a shaky gasp.
Evan’s response was immediate and unexpected. His head went back sharply, his eyes darkening in something close to shock, and he looked down at his hands, realising the aggressive nature of his position, the implied threat in the way he towered over her.
‘I’m sorry!’ he said abruptly, moving back swiftly and raking one hand through the ebony sleekness of his hair in a gesture that spoke more clearly of his mental disturbance than any words could ever do. ‘I’m sorry,’ he repeated, his voice rough and slightly husky. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’
Catherine was shocked to find that his features seemed blurred, that tears had filled her eyes, obscuring her vision, and she blinked hard to try to clear them away.
‘I’d like you to go now.’ But even as she spoke the words she knew that she had little hope that Evan would do as she asked.
‘Oh, no.’
The hard voice confirmed her fears, the adamant shake of his dark head driving home the point without hope of reprieve.
‘You’ve involved me now. I’m not leaving until you tell me just what’s going on.’
‘But you have an appointment.’
It was a last ditch effort, the only card she had to play, and the desperation in her voice revealed how close she was to breaking.
Her hopes rose slightly when Evan looked at his watch and frowned in response to her words. An hour, he had said, and most of that time was already gone.
Catherine could hardly believe her eyes when he turned on his heel and headed for the door. Surely it couldn’t be all over; it couldn’t be that easy!
It wasn’t. In the hall she heard Evan come to a halt, and then the sound of the telephone receiver being picked up. Without so much as a by your leave he pressed the number buttons with firm decisiveness.
‘Sam?’ His voice carried clearly to where she sat. ‘About tonight—I’m afraid something’s come up and I’m not going to be able to make it. Can we arrange another time?’
This Samantha must be an amazingly tolerant woman, Catherine reflected. There had been no apology, no hint of contrition in Evan’s voice, only that laconic ‘Something’s come up.’ Or was it Samuel, and so a very different matter entirely?
‘Cathy, I think we have to tell him.’ Her father’s tone was urgent, pushing her to agree. ‘You need someone—’
‘Someone, yes—but not Evan Lindsay.’
‘But why not? It’s his line—his territory, so to speak.’
‘But we don’t know anything about him.’
Catherine couldn’t put into words the way she felt, the fear that the thought of venturing into Evan Lindsay’s ‘territory’ aroused in her. It smacked of stepping blindfolded into the lion’s den, if not precisely putting her head in its mouth.
‘We don’t know who he is—what he is.’
‘Fine.’ In the hallway, Evan was bringing his conversation to an end. ‘I’ll see you then.’
‘I know he’s very good at his job—came highly recommended—and he’s certainly been more than thorough. And you know that I can’t be here after this week—’
‘But I can.’
Catherine’s head jerked up, her gaze going to the doorway in nervous response to Evan’s low-toned interjection. Still standing just outside the room, he studied her for a long, taut moment, blue-green eyes narrowed, his expression thoughtful.
‘You weren’t joking about the bodyguard,’ he pronounced at last, making Catherine draw in her breath sharply, wondering how she had ever hoped to hide anything from this perceptive, keenly observant man. ‘Don’t you think you’d better let me in on the secret? At least that way I’ll be on your side.’
‘Cathy,’ Lloyd prompted, ‘please…’
‘I—don’t know.’ Her blue eyes were shadowed and dull, looking faintly bruised above the colourless skin of her cheeks. ‘I don’t even know if you could help.’
Evan moved suddenly, coming to sit opposite her once more, his eyes holding hers all the time. Leaning forward, he took her hands in both of his, his grip warm and firm, the intensity of his gaze seeming to have the power to draw her soul right out of her body.
‘Try me,’ he said softly.
In that moment something happened—something strange and wonderful and totally inexplicable. In the second that he spoke the quiet words it was suddenly as if a huge weight had fallen from Catherine’s heart, as if all her doubts and fears had been taken from her, washed away on a new tide of hope and fresh confidence.
Here was a pair of strong shoulders onto which she could shift the burden that had blighted her days; here was a calm, intelligent mind that could find a way through the waking nightmare that her life seemed to have become. She no longer had doubts, no longer needed to hesitate, to be wary.
‘Help me,’ she said simply, and saw his eyes darken, saw the stunning gentleness of his smile.
It would be easy to fall in love with a man with eyes like that, whose mouth could curve in that way, lighting up his whole face, she thought dreamily, allowing the fantasy to take root for a brief, delirious second, before the realisation of the foolheardy direction of her thoughts had her blinking in sudden shock.
‘If I can, I will.’ Evan’s response was low and firm, the conviction in his voice enough to inspire confidence in even the most craven of hearts. ‘But first you have to help me. I need to know just what’s troubling you,’ he added when he saw her puzzled frown. ‘Do you trust me enough to tell me?’
Did she? Could she trust him? Who else could she turn to if she didn’t tell him? There was no one else; it was Evan or no one.
‘I don’t know where to begin…’ She had kept it to herself for so long that now it was difficult actually to let it out.
‘Is it a man?’ Evan prompted when she hesitated, shaking her head in despair.
‘Yes—at least, I think so. Oh, but not in the way you mean. I’m sorry—I’m not doing this very well.’
Evan’s silent shrug dismissed her apology as unnecessary.
‘Take your time. We have all night.’
Now we have, Catherine thought, recalling the way he had dismissed the waiting Sam. But there was something very reassuring about that ‘we’.
‘Perhaps a drink would help—something stronger than coffee,’ Lloyd put in, getting to his feet and heading towards the drinks cabinet.
‘I think not.’ Evan’s incisive command stopped him halfway. ‘We’d do better with clear heads—don’t you think?’
Those last three words were added purely for courtesy’s sake, Catherine realised. Evan’s words had had the force of an order, one he intended to be obeyed without argument, and her father had recognised that, sinking back into his chair without a protest. For better or worse, Evan Lindsay was now in charge. They had put themselves into his hands and there was no going back.
Into his hands—the words reverberated inside her head as she let her gaze drop to the fingers that still held her own, recognising their strength with a shiver of reaction that was a disturbing blend of relief and fear. She was painfully aware of the potential power in Evan’s hands— the force that, if it tightened just a tiny bit more, could bruise or break. Right now, she could only be grateful for the fact that that strength would be on her side.
‘I don’t know what my father told you about me…’
It was as if that thought had given her a mental push, and suddenly the words came tumbling out, like water pouring through newly opened floodgates.
‘But I work in television—children’s programmes, actually—and a couple of years ago I got a really big break when I was chosen to host a regular weekly show. It’s called Get Up and Go. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, but—’
But Evan was nodding. ‘Tuesdays—five till six.’
‘You know about it?’
‘My friend’s kids love it. They wouldn’t miss it for the world. You have two very loyal fans there.’
‘That’s great. How old are they—your friend’s children, that is?’
She spoke quickly, needing to distract herself from the sudden disturbing lurch her heart had given. When he smiled like that it lit up his whole face, softening the hard lines and making the blue-green eyes glow like a rock pool when the sun fell on it.
‘Five and seven—a boy and a girl. Amy’s the seven-year-old—she’s the real fan.’
‘Well, five is perhaps a little young to take it all in.’
She wouldn’t allow herself to wonder whether the friend he had referred to was the same one he had spoken of earlier. Were these the children of the Sam he had been going to have dinner with? It was worrying to find that in spite of her attempts to drive it from her mind the answer to that question suddenly seemed very important.
‘I always like to hear firsthand that people enjoy what we do. Of course, we do get a lot of letters—’
‘But not all of them from kids.’
The faint shake in her voice had betrayed her; either that or some tiny reaction in her face that had not escaped those watchful aquamarine eyes.
‘No.’ Her voice was very low.
‘And not all just expressing innocent admiration.’ It was a statement, not a question.
‘No.’ She shook her head, grateful for the way the movement made her fair hair fly around her face, concealing the vulnerability of her expression.
‘Cathy’s been the victim of a campaign of harassment,’ her father put in. ‘A stalker, I believe the current word is—an obsessive fan.’
‘An adult fan?’ Evan’s attention was concentrated on Catherine. ‘When did all this start?’
‘About seven months ago; just before Christmas. The first letter came in a bundle of ordinary mail, and really it was just very complimentary about my appearance.’ Catherine’s laugh was shaken. ‘He said I was just what he wanted in his Christmas stocking. But there was a tone to it—some rather sexual comments that made it plain it didn’t come from a typical fan. Your friend’s daughter and son are the sort who usually write.’
‘It was anonymous, I take it?’
‘Yes. There was another one the next week, and the next, and every week after that—sometimes two or three in a row. They started off mild enough, but they soon got more and more sexually explicit—more expressive of his personal fantasies—more disgusting.’ She shuddered, remembering.
‘But they just came to the television studios?’
‘No. I think I could have coped with that, but after a month or so they started arriving at my flat. He’d got my address from somewhere—where, I don’t know. And the letters were just the beginning. The next thing that happened was the parcels—’
‘Parcels?’
Catherine nodded miserably.
‘They contained underwear mostly—stockings, suspenders, G-strings. He’d write that he wanted to see me in them.’ She tried another laugh, one that broke up in the middle. ‘He must have spent a fortune.’
But Evan wasn’t laughing. As she’d told her story his expression had grown grimmer, darker, more dangerous—so that, looking at him, she could barely suppress a shiver of fearful reaction.
‘Go on,’ he prompted harshly when she hesitated. ‘I take it there was more?’
‘That was only the beginning…’
Now she wanted everything out in the open, wanted to pour the whole story out, as if by doing so she could purge herself of the horror, the fear with which she had lived for so long. So she told him how the letters had grown more and more sexually threatening, how the unknown stalker had declared that he believed she was his destiny, that one day they were meant to be together.
‘He even started to interpret things I’d said on the programme—things I’d said to children—as being messages just for him.’
Once again she shuddered, her blue eyes dark and shadowed.
‘He referred to them in his letters, giving them totally different meanings—making them disgusting and dirty. That was when we called the police, but of course there was no real evidence.’
‘The letters?’
Sadly, Catherine shook her head.
‘I burned most of them. Oh, I know I shouldn’t have done, but at first I just didn’t think it would last—I thought he’d soon get tired of pestering me. And then, later, they were so horrible that I couldn’t bear to have them around, and I destroyed them without thinking that they would be needed. Once I’d told the police they said I should pass the letters on to them unopened.’