Free Protecting His Assets by J.K. Coi Page B

thing, too. He’d had enough.
    His bristly bodyguard was right. He hated to admit it, but it was past time for him to take this situation seriously. He couldn’t wait for these events to escalate any further. It was becoming obvious that the party responsible was taking it seriously, and he couldn’t afford for someone to actually get hurt because he was too stubborn to acknowledge the problem.
    April glanced his way with a crease digging across her forehead. She said something to the police investigator. It had taken an hour for him to arrive, with two other officers in tow, and he had a feeling it might have taken longer if not for the combination of his reputation and her apparent connections.
    Steve had been surprised to hear the investigator call his bodyguard by name and ask after her father. It added another layer to his curiosity about her, but now was not the time for an interrogation…even though the presence of police officers might suggest otherwise.
    Doug approached. “I’m so sorry this happened, Mr. Nolan. I still can’t believe someone got up here without me noticing and trashed your place. This is completely my—”
    “Don’t do that to yourself, Doug. It wasn’t your fault.”
    His frown didn’t go away. Steve’s reassurance wasn’t making a dent in the poor guy’s guilt. “I’ll get the security tape from the manager first thing in the morning and make sure it gets to the cops like I promised,” said Doug. “And if I can think of anything else, I’ll let Ms. Porter know immediately.”
    She had asked Doug to outline as much of his shift to the uniformed officers as he could remember, in as much detail as he could, indicating that they would record it all and give her a copy of his statement in the morning. Then she’d supervised as the investigator brushed Steve’s front door and the other flat surfaces of his office for prints before moving on to do the same in the kitchen and bedroom.
    Steve hadn’t had much to do but listen to Doug relating his statement. He was on nights this week, so he’d started work at seven that evening and had done a sweep of the perimeter before the two daytime guards went home. Then he was the only guard on duty until three in the morning—as it was, he’d been forced to call in the next guy early when the police had shown up.
    He’d taken a break around ten but ate his snack—a peanut butter and jelly on rye that his mom had packed—at the front desk. He’d recalled that there hadn’t been any unaccompanied guests through that evening. It was against policy to interrogate strangers who were accompanied by residents of the building, so he didn’t have a list of those particular names, but it was a Friday night, so there’d been plenty of activity.
    It was good to know that his neighbors were all having a good time tonight, Steve thought with a grimace.
    He looked around the room, but his gaze always drifted back to her.
    It was obvious that Ms. Porter was the one running the show here. The investigator seemed competent, but not invested. After having to explain the threatening letters to the police once already that day, Steve didn’t doubt that if Ms. Porter hadn’t been here now, the cops would have asked him the same stupid questions all over again. But her no-nonsense presence had added a degree of efficiency to the procedure that alleviated a lot of the explosive anger that had consumed him since he’d walked into his apartment.
    A lot of it, but not all of it. There was still enough aggravation there to fuel him for a dozen more hours in the boxing ring.
    He fixed his sights on Ms. Porter while he seethed. Maybe she sensed it because she finally nodded and everyone started to pack up. She’d apparently decided they had everything they needed for now. He released a sigh of relief.
    The doorman glanced toward her for the twentieth time, too. Doug had been impressed to learn that Steve’s guest was actually his bodyguard—he’d decided