For better or worse, this was her mother.
“Yes, Mother,” Yohanna replied in a near-to-singsong voice. “Bye.” And with that, she hung up, promising herself to get a new phone—one with a working caller ID—the first opportunity she got.
* * *
Yohanna didn’t remember when she finally closed her eyes and fell asleep.
All she knew was that it felt as if she’d only been asleep for ten minutes before she opened her eyes again and saw that, according to the clock on her nightstand, it was quarter to six.
Spader wanted her at his Newport Beach home by seven.
Stifling a groan, she stumbled out of bed, then somehow made her way down the stairs and into the recently remodeled kitchen.
If she was going to get anything accomplished, she needed coffee. Deep, hearty, black coffee. Downing one cup fortified her enough to go back upstairs, take a shower and get dressed. All of which she did at very close to top speed. She needed to get out and on the road as quickly as possible.
She didn’t anticipate any large traffic snarls from her home to Spader’s but there was always a chance of a collision and/or a pileup—and she didn’t like leaving anything to chance.
She also didn’t like calculating everything down to the last possible moment. On time wasn’t her style—being early was.
Fueled by an enormous amount of nervous energy, Yohanna was on the road less than half an hour after she’d woken up.
Twenty minutes after that, she was parked across the street from Spader’s impressive three-story house. As usual, she was early and, ordinarily, she would walk up to the front door and ring the bell. She just assumed that to most people, being early was a plus. But Lukkas Spader might be one of those people who actually didn’t like anyone arriving early, possibly before he was ready to see them.
She needed to find that little detail out before tomorrow morning. In the meantime, she looked at her wristwatch and continued to wait, parked directly across from his slightly winding driveway.
Which was where the patrol officer who tapped on her driver’s-side window found her.
Startled by the knock—her mind was elsewhere—Yohanna looked up at the officer. To say she was surprised to see him was putting it mildly.
The officer motioned for her to roll down her window. Which, after one false start, she did.
“Is there something wrong, Officer?” she asked him, even though, for the life of her, she couldn’t imagine what that could be, or why he’d want to speak to her in the first place.
“You tell me,” he replied, waiting. When she continued watching him without saying a word in response to his flippant remark, the officer appeared to be losing patience as he asked, “Mind telling me what you’re doing sitting out here all alone like this?”
“I’m waiting until seven o’clock,” she explained. To her, it was all very logical.
“What happens then?” he asked.
She found the officer’s tone just slightly belligerent, but told herself it was her imagination. “I knock on Mr. Spader’s door.”
The officer didn’t seem to believe her. “And then what?” he demanded.
“He lets me in.” Why was he asking all this? she wondered. She certainly didn’t look unsavory.
“That the plan?” the officer said sarcastically.
Yohanna began to feel a little uneasy. “I don’t think I understand.”
The officer blew out a breath, sounding as if he was struggling to keep from raising his voice. “Look, honey, why don’t you just drive off, buy yourself some popcorn and watch one of the guy’s movies like everyone else does?”
The officer clearly didn’t understand. “But Mr. Spader is waiting to see me.”
“Sure he is,” the officer said in a humoring voice. “You look like a decent kid. Stalking never ends well. Not for the stalker, not for the person they’re stalking. So why don’t you just—”
“Wait, what?” Yohanna cried, stunned at the very suggestion the officer was making. “I’m not stalking Mr. Spader,” she insisted. “I work for him.”
“Suuure you do.” He stretched out the word, mocking her before he suddenly became stone-cold serious. “I don’t want to take you in, but you’re really not leaving me much of a choice here, lady. Now, for the last time, start your car and go home—”
“Ask him,” Yohanna cried quickly. “He’ll tell you that I work for him. Just go up to his door and knock.” She was almost pleading now.
If she didn’t show up the first day, she might as well kiss the job goodbye. And even if she wound up having the policeman escort her to Spader’s door, the producer still might hand her her walking papers. No one wanted to knowingly work around trouble.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? So you could tell all your little crazy loser friends that you got to see Lukkas Spader up close and personal-like. Sorry, I’m not in the business of making your pathetic little fantasies come true. Now, this is your last chance to go free—” he began again.
“Please, I’m telling you the truth, Officer. I work for Lukkas Spader. He told me to meet him here at seven this morning and I was just waiting until seven before knocking on his door. I am not stalking him,” she insisted.
Still apparently unconvinced, the police officer frowned.
“You’re not leaving me any choice. I warned you.” One hand was now covering the hilt of his service weapon, ready to draw it out at less than a heartbeat’s notice. “Get out of the car. Now.”
One look into the man’s eyes and Yohanna knew the officer wouldn’t stand for being crossed. He wasn’t the type to suffer any sort of acts of disobedience quietly or tranquilly.
Keeping her hands out where he could see them, Yohanna did as the police officer ordered. She got out of the car slowly.
“Is there a problem, Officer?”
The question came from someone standing directly behind the officer. Yohanna leaned over slightly to look, praying she was right.
She was.
It was Lukkas.
Yohanna’s heart went into overdrive.
“No, sir, Mr. Spader. I just caught another stalker. This one’s not as intense as the other one was, but she looks like trouble all the same.”
Lukkas smiled as he stepped to the officer’s side and looked at her. “She does, doesn’t she?”
“Do you want to press charges?” the police officer asked, looking expectantly at the man standing next to him.
Stunned, Yohanna’s eyes widened considerably as she stared at the man she had thought was her new employer. Had her signals gotten somehow crossed and she’d misunderstood him yesterday?
No, that wasn’t possible. He hadn’t given her anything in writing, but she remembered every word he’d said and could recite them back to him verbatim. Her very precise photographic memory was part of what made her so good at organizing things. It also helped her take care of what needed to be done—and then remembering where everything was hours, even days, later.
She was about to nudge the producer’s memory a little so this officer could move along when she heard Spader tell the man, “No, not at this time, Officer.”
The police officer