“Did you just hack into the security on the elevator?”
He shrugged. “I can pretty much get into most places.”
“So you’re telling me, it’s possible that out there, is someone who is just as good as you with tech, who can use this private elevator to get up to my floor?” Hysteria was settling in, and my head hurt.
“It’s a losing battle keeping up with the kind of technology that is available to people who really want to cause harm.”
“That’s not making me feel any better.”
“I’m not here to make you feel better. As I said, I’m here to keep you safe. To do that, I have to stay one step ahead of the person or persons who are messing with you.”
I wonder if he thought that using the word messing was reassuring, because it wasn’t. I’d already amped this up in my head to way past normal levels of reaction, and was well on my way to feeling this was spiteful vindictiveness.
The elevator doors opened and I held back to let him go first, fear poking at my chest as my dread spiked up way higher than facing off with the fiercest D-Man in a game. The reaction was more as if there was an entire team of Kalashnikov-wielding assassins waiting to take me down the minute I stepped out of the steel box. He nodded for me to follow, and the rush of adrenalin subsided instantly when I saw the space was empty.
There were six doors along the corridor. I knew two of the people who lived there, one a team mate, the other a yoga instructor who was currently sleeping with said team mate. God knows who lived behind the other doors. There was no point in me knocking with a casserole and a welcome card when they moved in. Security was good there, and that was why a lot of people had chosen this building—anonymity and security. This was home and I loved it; I had a wonderful view of Lake Champlain, albeit in the far distance, a cleaning service, a pool in the basement, a gym, and plenty of parking for someone like me who took up two parking spaces.
“I’m guessing you’ll be checking out everybody in the building?” I asked as we reached 603.
“We’ve already done that.” He hovered outside my door and I realized I was waiting for him to hack his way into my apartment. But he was staring at me expectantly and I unlocked the door with the key and then waited for him to go in first. We were getting good at this dance.
The apartment was empty as it was most days, the views over the lake just as far away as they were when I’d left the place this morning. The kitchen was clean but then I hadn’t eaten in there for about six days, tending to spend most of my free time either at the arena or out with friends. I had a lot of friends, mostly hockey players or hockey assistants or indeed anything to do with hockey. Even my best friend was a hockey player, but hockey had been my life since I was eight and I didn’t want it any other way. I expanded my world with charity events, endorsement appearances and signings. I knew every single Burlington restaurant, from the magnificent chefs with Michelin stars and vintage wine, to the small hole-in-the-wall establishments that served the best burgers. I was happy.
Sometimes lonely, but mostly happy.
I glanced round and saw the apartment through the eyes of the man who was trying to keep me safe. I realized he might have called it sterile. I did have splashes of bright scarlet and sunshine orange, and the color scheme went from throw cushions to thick drapes, all supplied by my decorator, of course. There were six mugs from scarlet to yellow on the counter that I never drank out of, simply because the designer had lined them up just so, and my cleaner must’ve wiped under them and then returned them to the exact same position. It was the poor decorator’s attempt to brighten up what was otherwise a very white apartment, and to save it from what she called my bachelor blandness.
“Okay then.” He disappeared into my bedroom and was in there for a few moments before checking the other bedrooms, then poking his head into the bathrooms. There wasn’t an awful lot to see in my space, and when he came back to stand next to me, I hadn’t moved. The second bedroom was a repository for endless amounts of hockey gear, brand-new jerseys, game pucks, all in labelled boxes that I would do something with when I finally wanted to move out of this place and into a house.
That was what all the players on my team ended up doing. Falling in love, getting married, kids, houses, sometimes in that order, sometimes not. I wasn’t jealous, I had independence, and I was at the top of my career, I was even the one team member chosen to attend the All-Star game, and how was any of that bad?
So, why me? Why does someone want to hurt me?
“Maybe they’re just trying to throw me off my game,” I blurted the culmination of my internal ramblings, and he cast a glance my way before crossing to the window and staring down at the street below. I got a good look at him in his perfect suit, hands on his hips, a thoughtful expression on his face, and I glimpsed the weapon I’d thought he might have been carrying. It was just a small flash of leather holster and the black of a gun, nevertheless I was confused whether I should fear that he felt it necessary to be armed, or relief that he would protect me if needed.
“Has it worked?” he asked, and I had to try really hard to recall what we’d been talking about. Oh yeah, throwing me off my game.
“Not until the next game, when I’m on the ice and because of you I can now imagine a hundred sniper rifles pointing at me.”
He turned to face me, leaning back against the glass. Should he have been standing in the window? Should I be standing where I was, exposed to whoever could be outside?
“No one is going to shoot you.”
“Then why the hell do I need protection? You read the notes, and the team think it’s a reasonable threat, so please explain why you don’t think I’m going to get shot.”
“Statistically speaking, Deamax hasn’t lost a single client to a bullet.”
I felt relieved, as if all my angst had slipped away from me, and then it hit me all at once, because if there was one thing I knew it was statistics.
“But you have lost clients? Poison? Knives? Cars.”
“We’ve never lost a client. Yet,” he qualified, careful in his choice of the right words to leave me with no uncertainty. “Statistically forty-eight hours and Operations will likely have solved this entire matter. Food? I’m guessing you need to eat?”
After his rapid change of subject, he brushed past me in the small space between the sofa and the coffee table. I caught the scent of him, the leather of his holster, the citrus of shower gel, and the warmth of him so close to me was a reassurance but also a temptation I had to ignore. The guy was statistically likely to be straight, married, with two kids, a dog called Floof, and a minivan that was used by his PTA running, pie-wielding, wife.
“I’ve eaten at the arena,” I said, even as he opened my refrigerator and then shut it.
“It’s empty.”
“Of course it is. I’m never here.”
“You’re here tonight.”
There he went with his need to point out the obvious.
“You’re so observant.” The persistent buzz of my cell was a welcome interruption, and I answered it without looking at the name.
“An opportunity has crossed my desk,” Shaun announced with his usual agent’s happy-to-make-more-money tone.