Page 209 of Duty and Desire

CLOSER

By Kylie Scott

CHAPTER 1

I couldn’t have been more tired if I tried. It felt like a billion hours of traveling cross country for a two-day shoot. And it hadn’t helped that I was modelling winter clothes on the streets of New Orleans during the middle of their hot, wet summer. Honest to God, I was ready to lie down and die. Or at least snooze for a really long time, Sleeping Beauty style. Once I got up to my new apartment, of course. After so many years of my life being in a constant state of flux, it was beyond nice to have a home.

“Miss Cooper,” said Leonard, the concierge/security guard, with a smile. He was a big strong man in his fifties, if I had to guess. Not someone you’d want to mess with. “Welcome back.”

“Thanks.”

“How was your trip?”

“Good. How’s your week been?”

“Fine, miss,” he said. “A parcel came for you. I’ll just grab it.”

“Thanks, Leonard.”

He headed for a door behind the counter as I set my LV Keepall Bandouliére on the floor. One day I would learn not to overpack. Probably not anytime soon, however. I rolled my shoulder back a few times then forward. It didn’t help the ache.

Finding exactly the right place to put down roots hadn’t been easy. The apartment block sat in the middle of the Pearl District. Right in the heart of a heap of great shops and restaurants. I loved it. New York and Los Angeles might be more fashion world relevant, but Portland was my hometown. Art deco stonework surrounded the front door and the lobby was all shiny surfaces. The building had lots of old world charm. Lots of rock stars too, what with rising star Adam Dillon and half the members of the world famous Stage Dive band taking up the top two floors. They were the cause of occasional fans lurking outside. Thankfully I wasn’t the one drawing crowds, which was how I liked it. Live next to someone more famous than yourself and you’re bound to be left in peace—most of the time.

Leonard stepped out of the back room with a box in his hands and a frown on his face. “Something’s leaking.”

“Oh no.” A drop of red fell onto the white marble floor. The box was the wrong size for a bottle of wine and I highly doubted someone would have sent me tomatoes. “What the hell?”

He set it on the counter. Several of his fingers were smeared with the stuff. We both stared in growing horror as more of the red stuff oozed from a corner of the unopened box and the scent of copper filled the air.

“I-I think it’s blood.” I swallowed hard. “Leonard, can you please call the police?”

“I don’t want a bodyguard.”

“Around about the time someone sends you a dead cow’s heart with a knife stabbed through it, you’ve kind of lost that option.” Lena Ferris laid down the law while daintily pushing her red acrylic glasses further up her nose.

She had a point. Not that I was yet ready to admit it. My head fell back against the couch. “But I enjoy being on my own. I like my privacy.”

“Oh, please. This is just another side effect of your chosen vocation. You said goodbye to a percentage of privacy when you hit the cover of a certain sports magazine in a tiny black bikini, my dear,” she continued. “Five million Instagram followers, some of whom are sending you damn creepy messages, says you need to compromise. It’s your safety at stake.”

Another valid point from Lena. Dammit.

I’d first met Lena, photographer and wife to the lead singer of Stage Dive, about a year ago on a shoot. We’d bonded immediately. Not only were we both curvy brunettes, we shared a somewhat skewed sense of humor and general appreciation for sarcasm. And given how long and boring shoots can be, the woman was a godsend to work with. It was her recommendation that I look at the apartment that became my home.

“You’re not really going to be difficult about this, are you?” she asked, sitting opposite me with a cup of coffee in hand. “I deal enough with big famous babies thanks to my husband and twin daughters.”

“No.” I sighed. “It’s just so…man, it makes me angry that someone gets to mess with my life like this. And I’m too tired to argue with you, especially when I know you’re talking sense.”

“How much sleep have you had in the last forty-eight hours?”

I sighed. “The detective questioned me until early in the morning. Then, when I finally got up to my apartment, I just kept staring at the bedroom ceiling trying to figure out who’d be deranged enough to do something like this.”

“It’s probably not someone you know.”

“Probably.”

“They just think they have a relationship with you because they’re crazy.”

I frowned. “I mean, an actual heart. It’s so gross.”