Free Game On by Nancy Warren Page B

that he could send untraceable emails. Shows up at your office? Sounds like we have a possible winner.”
    “How do you know those emails are untraceable?”
    “I don’t. It’s a hunch. We detectives are famous for them, you know.” His eyes crinkled a little around the edges and she knew he was trying to make her feel better.
    Wasn’t working.
    “I’d like to have a little talk with this guy.”
    “And scare away one of my top clients? I don’t think so.”
    “He could be threatening you.”
    “Why? Why would he?”
    “Why do crazy people do things?” He threw up his hands. “I don’t know. Maybe the stress of his sudden success is curdling his milk. He sees a beautiful, sexy woman like you and knows he could never have her. There could be all kinds of crazy in his head.”
    She had to stop focusing on the fact that he’d called her beautiful and sexy. She had to concentrate on the troubling messages. But there was a sort of jumpy excitement in her belly that reminded her she was sitting across from the most sexually exciting man she’d met in ages.
    Now they were alone in his house. And she really, really wanted to get naked with him.
    “I don’t want you talking to my client. He sees me in my office. My assistant is always there.” She tried to imagine Marcus Lemming sending her threats and simply couldn’t. “You know, I’m a pretty good judge of character and I’ve never had any sense of something being off with Ma—my client.”
    He leaned forward. Pinned her with an intense blue stare. “Listen to interviews with the neighbors and coworkers of a serial killer sometime. Mostly they can’t believe that such a nice young man could do such awful things.”
    Since there was no point in arguing about whether Marcus Lemming might be a serial killer, she took refuge in her wine. The glass was nearly empty and in spite of the conversation topic she was starting to feel more settled.
    “You hungry?” he asked.
    Surprisingly, she was. “Yes.”
    “Pizza okay?”
    “That would be perfect.”
    He stood up. “I’ll call it in.” He strode past her and paused. “You’re not going to make me get some weird-ass pizza, are you? Duck and seaweed or something?”
    She chuckled at his tone of horror. “No. I’m happy with something traditional.”
    “Excellent.” He lifted the receiver on his landline and hit a number on speed dial. She guessed he ate a lot of pizza. “Pepperoni, mushroom and green pepper. Pizza as God intended it.”
    “Extra cheese?” she asked.
    He grinned at her. “You might just be the perfect woman.” Then he was speaking to the pizza place and she was spared an answer. Which was a good thing because she couldn’t think of one. Perfect woman? She was an emotional mess who preached balance to her coaching clients but was so out of balance herself she hadn’t had a relationship in a year and a half and had barely noticed. Worse, she was so clueless that she had an enemy she hadn’t known about.
    Adam put down the phone. Told her the delivery would be about twenty minutes, then remained by the phone frowning. “If you won’t let me open a case file on this, then I’m going to need two things.”
    This sounded very much like bargaining. She didn’t feel like bargaining. “What?”
    “First, you let me show the emails to a colleague of mine. A profiler. She’s a friend. She’ll keep my request confidential if I ask her to.”
    She thought about it. Realized the request was reasonable. “Okay. And the second thing?”
    “We bring Max in on this. You know that one of the companies he owns is a top security firm, right?”
    “Yes.” Max loved planes and flying and space, and he owned a regional airline. But he was also a smart entrepreneur. He owned media outlets, a couple of online businesses and a big security company that was one of the best in the country.
    “But—”
    “I want your apartment and your workplace scoured for bugs, hidden cameras, any kind of