Page 10 of The Bodyguard's Fall

Before I could investigate, he continued.

“Why are you mad? You like the Walkers.”

“That doesn’t mean I want to insert myself into their lives.”

“You’ll be fine. It’s just for a week.”

I set my head back on the headrest as Will drove. The Walker boys were as wild as they were charming and as fun as they were town rascals. Jaxon Walker had been my age and a good friend, but he was engaged to Ari’s little sister. Ben was married—or had been married…I wasn’t quite sure, but I didn’t think he lived at home. The youngest Walker, Luke, always had a young and wild kind of aesthetic, and I wasn’t sure how Will was okay with entrusting him with my life. The Walker parents, Tom and Ann, were the salt of the earth, give-you-the-shirt-off-their-back kind of people.

But I wasn’t about to go live with them.

“No,” I said. “I’m not going.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No.”

“Don’t make me pull out my badge.”

“You signed me up to be babysat!”

Utter mortification washed over me as I imagined waltzing into the Walker family home to stay for a week.

“No!” I began again, “No thank you. Turn the car around right now. I’ll just marry Leroy. Okay? He obviously loves me. If we put the whole stalker thing aside, we at least know he has excellent taste.”

Will’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing. He also didn’t turn the car around.

I edged closer to him, in full-blown panic mode. “Will, I am NOT going to be a burden to anyone else, especially to the entire Walker family.”

“You won’t be.”

In a classic Will move, he turned on the radio and kept driving me farther away from Vermont’s capital and my current apartment.

I checked the sideview mirror.

“What car are you looking at?” Will asked, checking his own mirror.

“The white Honda.”

“They just pulled onto the road a few exits back.”

I sank back down against my seat and tried again, this time my tone softer. More reasonable.

“Listen. I appreciate you worrying so much about me, but I’m not doing this. I’m a grown woman with a job and…you can’t do this. It hasn’t even been that bad lately. I’ve hardly heard from⁠—”

“There were three more letters in your mailbox this week.”

My heart stopped. “What?”

“One had a picture of you walking into your meeting in town last week. He wrote that he liked your green sweater but prefers your soft-pink one. Or your white striped silky pajamas. The ones with the gold buttons.”

For a long moment, his words just hovered in the air between us like a rain cloud, me not fully willing to take on the weight of what it all meant—that feeling of utter violation.

And he wasn’t done.

In a gentler tone, he added, “I intercepted two more emails last week. He’s getting more intense and saying more unhinged things. He’s planning your wedding and says he’ll come for you when it’s time. It’s scaring the hell out of me, so I can’t imagine what it’s doing to you. This is our chance. My boss is giving me one week to find him. This is now an official police operation, and we need you out of your house.”

I stared out the window, the glow of town lights shrinking as Will drove us down the dimly lit interstate. I absently ran a finger up and down the seam of my pants.