Finally Home (Home Series) (3 page)

Gavin pulled up behind him on the curb in front of her house.  Mike got out and shook hands with him.

"Thanks for doing this, Mike," Gavin said, "I know you are busy with Riley being gone."

"Nothing that can't wait.  Has she received any more phone calls?" he asked, following Gavin up to her front door.

"Not that I know of."

Mike sat his equipment bag on the floor just inside her foyer and took out an electronic device that would indicate if any surveillance equipment was present in the house.  Gavin cursed when it began beeping and Mike began collecting hidden bugs and cameras.

"We did a sweep of the house and removed everything last night.  We couldn't have missed this many!"

Mike didn't speak as he began removing bug after bug.  Gavin was correct; there was no way his guys missed this many.  That indicated that the stalker had been back inside the house since the police left a few hours before.  And these weren't just any bugs, either.  This was top of the line, high dollar equipment.  Someone knew what they were doing.

"Did you make a sweep of her office?" Mike asked after he'd finished removing bugs from the house.

"No.  We should go there."

"Where is Lainey now?"

Gavin glanced at his watch.  "Still at her office."

"OK, but I need to call my guys first, get them mobilized."

"Yeah, go ahead.  I'm going to call Lainey and check in on her and let her know we're on our way to the office."

Mike watched Gavin walk away and then called Colt.

"Hey, Boss, what's up?"

"Are you in the middle of anything you can't walk away from right now?"

"Not in the middle of anything at the moment.  What do you need?"

Mike filled Colt in on the basics and what he would need for her house and let him know he'd have more information for him once he got to her offices.

"Can you get down here and do the installation personally?  I'd feel better if your hands were on this."

"Yeah, sure."

"I'll send a jet for you.  Can you be here tomorrow?"

"
Yeah.  I'll send the specs to Melissa and make sure she can get all that I need overnighted.  Probably need to bring Coop in to help me since Blondie is still on his honeymoon."

"I may call Tessa in as well.  I need these systems installed quickly."

"Tessa wouldn't be my first choice to help install an alarm system, Boss," Colt chuckled.

"No, but she can keep an eye on Lainey while I help do the install."

"That would be good.  How old is Lainey?  Riley always talked about her like she was a little girl."

"She's not a little girl," Mike said, simply.  "I'll send you details on when the jet arrives.  Contact Coop if you want him.  I'll call Whit and Tessa."

"Yeah, OK, Boss.  See you tomorrow."

Gavin came back in, shaking his head.  "Ready?"

Mike nodded, following Gavin out and watching him lock the front door behind them. He scanned the neighborhood but his eyes kept returning to the woods.  When the team was assembled, before they began installations, he was going to have them sweep every inch of those woods. 

Lainey placed her phone gently down on her desk and closed her eyes.  Her dad was on his way there...with Mike Casiano.  Her nerves were shot, and her dad's and Riley's solution was to bring Mike Casiano in. 
Mike. Freaking.  Casiano.
  The man had haunted her dreams for the last ten years.  She ran into him a couple of times last month at Jenna Blackwell's house; the first times she'd seen him since the night she'd first saw him at the Founders Day Ball when she was seventeen years old.  He and Riley had been wearing their dress whites and he'd looked like a movie star to her. 

When she'd seen him at Jenna's, she'd noticed scars on his face that hadn't been there all those years ago.  She'd seen a coldness in his eyes that
hadn't been there back then, either.  Maybe that was because she'd been too naive to see it back then.  Maybe, at that time, the atrocities of war hadn't infected him yet

.  Now, however, his eyes carried within them the horrors he'd lived through.  She'd seen the same look in Riley's eyes, just to a lesser degree.  From what Riley had told her, though, Mike had been through a thousand times more than the rest of the unit had.

Her office phone rang, pulling her from her thoughts.  Taking a deep breath, she reached for the receiver.

"Lainey Riley," she answered.

"Why are you so sad, Miss Lainey?" that same voice from last night asked.

"Who are you?" she asked
, frantically looking around her office for hidden cameras.

"There's no reason for you to be sad.  I would never hurt you."

"You are hurting me.  By calling me and threatening my friends and placing surveillance equipment in my home...and apparently in my office.  THAT is hurting me!"

Her raised voice brought Kacee running across the hall and into her office. 

"Hang up the phone, Lainey," Kacee told her.  When Lainey didn't move, Kacee took the receiver from her hand and hung it up.  Lainey took several deep, calming breaths, trying to calm her racing heart.  Kacee embraced her, stroking her hand over her hair to help calm her.  "It's going to be OK," she whispered.

"He has cameras in here, too," Lainey whispered.  "He asked why I looked so sad."

Kacee looked around the room, alarmed, but remained steadfast.  "Your dad will take care of it."

Lainey drew a deep, ragged breath.  "Riley called Mike.  He's on his way here with my dad."

A slow smile spread across Kacee's face.  "Mike's coming here to look after you?"  Lainey nodded.  "There?  See?  Something positive.  High school crushes aside, Mike will take care of all of this."

"I just want this all to stop," Lainey whispered. 

They heard the front door buzz as someone stepped in, and then she heard her father's voice calling out to her.  She stood and she and Kacee walked up to the reception area of their offices...and she felt her heart momentarily stop when that piercing gaze settled on her.

Chapter Two

As soon as Lainey stepped into the reception area, Mike knew something was wrong.  Her eyes were as big as the moon and she looked like she was ready to snap.  She met his gaze momentarily, then looked up at her father.

"He just called the office line," she told her dad, "he could see me.  My office is bugged, too."

Mike immediately stepped forward, pushing past them and into her office.  They all followed him in and watched him pull his electronic sweeper device from his bag and begin to
sweep the room.  She watched in shock as he pulled several bugs and cameras from around the room. 

"Daddy?  How?" she asked, looking up at him for answers.

"I don't know, baby," he replied and she could see the anger and frustration on his rugged face.  She'd always been proud of the fact that her father looked younger than his age of fifty-eight.  Honestly, he looked like an older version of Riley.  He'd been thirty-two when she was born; just slightly younger than Riley was right now; slightly younger than Mike Casiano, who was now pulling something up on her computer.

"He'd tapped into her webcam," Mike told her father.
  "Whoever this is, he's good with electronics."  Mike's gaze shifted to Lainey and she felt a chill run through her to be under his close scrutiny.  "Can you think of anyone you have come in contact with who this could be?"

She shook her head.  "I deal mainly with children and mothers.  It's rare for men to come in with their families.  The ones who have...I just can't imagine it's one of them."

Gavin Riley shifted so that he was looking down at his daughter, concern on his face.

"Baby, I know you like to think the best of people, but this is obviously someone you have had contact with.  He said you sent him a letter."

Lainey raked her fingers through her hair in frustration and began to pace the length of the room, well aware that both men were watching her. 

"I've been thinking about who it could be ever since that call came through last night.  I just don't know."

"Who would you have sent a letter to?" Gavin pressed.  "And why would you send someone a letter?"

"I get thank y
ou notes all the time, Daddy.  I usually send a standard acknowledgment back to them."

Mike spoke then.  "Do you keep the notes you receive?"

She looked over at him.  His face was unreadable, his eyes a bit softer but still assessing.

"Yes," she answered, crossing over to the credenza behind her desk.  She opened a drawer and gestured to it with a sweep of her hand.  "They're all in there."

Mike looked down into the opened drawer and was stunned by the amount of envelopes.  The drawer was fairly deep and she had the envelopes bundled together in stacks...at least a dozen stacks all as tall as his hand.

"I need you to go through all of these.  Find the ones from men and..."

"Those are all from men," she replied.  "The ones from women and kids are in the next drawer."

Gavin stepped closer and picked up one of the stacks.  "You get this many letters from
men
??" he roared, actually causing Lainey to laugh.

"Ever since Kacee and I were interviewed on Raven's news show, we get "fan mail". Most of it is harmless.  We get a good laugh over them."

"You get fan mail?  Damn it, Lainey!  The person who is doing all of this has likely made contact with you this way.  What were you thinking, responding to these?" Gavin admonished.

Lainey folded her arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes at him.  "Yelling at me isn't going to solve anything, you know.  It's common courtesy to acknowledge the receipt of a note with a note in kind.  Most of these are just harmless little flirtations.  I thanked them for their kind words and left it at that.  Besides, I don't think this guy is in these stacks.  He said I told him he had a nice smile, which means at some point, I have been face-to-face with him."

"Do you keep mail from clients separate from these?" Mike asked, heading off another explosion from her father. 

"Sometimes.  I put them in the patient files.  I just haven't had time to think this through, to figure out who this may be."

"You haven't had time?" Gavin sputtered.  "You've had all day!!"

"I've had patients all day," she countered.

"You need to cancel your appointments for the next few days, until all of this is resolved," her father barked.

"Not going to happen," she snapped.

"Lainey, you -" Gavin began, but Mike cut him off.

"I don't see any reason for her to disrupt her work because of this.  We will need to alter her daily routine some, but she can still do her work."

She shifted her narrowed gaze from her father to Mike, and to his amazement, Mike actually found her gaze a bit jarring. 

"What do you mean, alter my daily routine?"

"You have a stalker.  They tend to learn your routine and arrange to be where you are going to be in order to watch you."

His phone rang, drawing his attention.  He told them he needed to take the call and walked out into the hall, leaving Lainey with her father.

"Tessa, thanks for getting back to me."

"You said it was urgent.  What's up?"

"Do you have anything pressing on your plate at the moment?"

"No."

"I need you in Springfield.  Riley's cousin, Lainey, has picked up a stalker and I'm going to need someone to keep an eye on her while I'm helping Colt install security systems.  Can you be here tomorrow?"

"Um, yeah, sure, I think so.  Let me double check with Shane but I
don't think it will be a problem."

"OK.  Thanks, Tess."

"No problem.  Just send me the address.  I'll let you know if I can't make it for any reason."

"Appreciate it."

He ended the call then called Colt back.

"Hey, Boss, whatcha got?"

"He tapped into her work computer, accessed her webcam.  Can you track him through that?"

"Absolutely.  Send me an email from her computer so I can get her IP address and that will get the ball rolling."

"Anything else?"

"Just that for now."

"All right.  Thanks.  I'm going through her offices right now, I'll send you the specs for the security upgrade.  They have a system in place now, but it's just a basic system."

"Shouldn't be too hard to upgrade.  I've got the system nearly pegged for her house. 
I'll just need to make adjustments when I'm actually there."

"OK.  Thanks, Colt."

"No problem.  See you tomorrow."

He finished up looking at the security system and making notes to send to Colt, then went into Kacee's office.  She was at her desk, typing away on her computer.  She offered him a smile when she saw him in the doorway.