Glass Slipper Bride

“I didn’t order lunch today,” he said, pleasant but dismissive.

Her small, plump, bow-shaped mouth trembled slightly above her delicately pointed chin. “I know,” she admitted breathlessly. “It’s a bribe.”

He almost laughed, but the seriousness of her expression somehow quelled the impulse. “Policemen can be bribed,” he pointed out, “but I’m not a cop any longer, Miss—?” He made it a question.

Lois took over then, saying, “Waltham. It’s Jillian Waltham. Jilly, this is my boss, Zachary Keller. Jilly has a problem, Boss, just the sort you manage best. I promised her you’d help.”

So that was it, another charity case. For some reason, that irritated him when it never had before. He turned away no one who really needed his help—women, usually, whose mates battered and berated them. Most of his paying clients were celebrities of some sort who needed protection or just “buffering,” someone to stand between them and the public. Occasionally, if business was slow, he worked standard security for corporations and organizations, seminars, private banquets and such, but he much preferred helping individual clients remove themselves from danger and dead-end lives. And yet, for some reason, he didn’t want to deal with this woman. He didn’t want to, but he would.

Zach dropped his feet and leaned forward, reaching for the bag with a smile on his face, as if to say he’d save the world for a Downtown Deli sandwich. “Have a seat, Jillian Waltham, and tell me how I can help you.”

She handed over the tray and practically collapsed into the small armchair opposite his desk. “I know I should have made an appointment, but I was afraid it would be weeks before you could see me.”

.Business was good, but not that good. Thankfully. He waved away the statement with one hand while unfolding the top of the bag with the other. “No problem. We try to be accommodating.”

“It’s just the way you always order it,” she said helpfully, meaning the sandwich.

He shot her a look and moved on to the coffee, lifting the container from the tray and carefully removing the lid before tossing it into the trash basket under his desk. Settling back into his chair once more, he sipped the strong black brew and contemplated the woman opposite him. He was surprised to find that behind those hideous glasses and beneath that laughable headband was an arrestingly pretty face. It was almost elfin. In fact, if her ears were pointed she’d look just like the drawing of a fairy princess in his nephew’s book of fairy tales. And, by golly, those enormous eyes were just that. Upon closer inspection, he rather doubted that she really even needed those glasses and their seemingly flat lenses. For some reason that irritated, too. What was she hiding from? Who was she hiding from? Or was it something more sinister?

Zach had learned from sad experience that the more controlling, abusive husbands and boyfriends typically belittled the very objects of their desire to the point of self-hatred. It was as if such men could not bear for the world to see what attracted them. Women so beleaguered tended to see themselves as unattractive, humpy, even ugly, and to present themselves accordingly. He wondered who had convinced Jillian Waltham that she was unattractive.

“Are you married?” he asked, taking a peek at her bare ring finger.

She seemed surprised by the question. “Ah, no.”

“Ever been married?”

She frowned. “No.”

“It’s a boyfriend, then,” he surmised authoritatively, “someone who tells you that you don’t deserve him and then won’t let go. I’ve seen it dozens of times.”

She pushed her glasses up on her short, sharp nose and studied him. Suddenly enlightenment softened her face, and she laughed, a light, chiming sound that seemed to make magic. In that instant she wasn’t pretty at all. She was beautiful, breathtakingly so. Zach set his cup down with a muted plunk, hot coffee splashing over the rim onto the webbing between his thumb and forefinger. He shook his hand and rubbed it against his thigh, mesmerized, and suddenly he knew what it was about her that bothered him.

Serena.

Jillian Waltham reminded him of Serena.

He immediately squelched the spurt of emotion that thinking of Serena inevitably brought him. It had been almost five years, and the thought of her senseless death still enraged and pained him. Desperately, he pushed the thought away and tried to listen to Jillian Waltham.

“It isn’t my boyfriend,” she was saying, leaning forward. “It’s my sister’s.”

“Sister’s,” he echoed dumbly.

“Maybe you’ve heard of her, Camille Waltham, Channel 3 News.”

Camille Waltham. Channel 3 News. Sister. Something familiar swam around the edges of his mind and then suddenly dove into its center. He saw a trim, effervescent, conventionally pretty blonde with smartly styled hair and perfect makeup. The sound of her voice came to him: “This is Camille Waltham, Channel 3 News, thanking you for watching. Because we’re YOUR news station.” Reality snapped into focus. Not Jillian Waltham. Not someone who reminded him of Serena. And not a charity case, thank God. Camille Waltham, newscaster. He opened a drawer and took out a pad and pen. After flipping open the pad, he began to write.

“Let me get this straight,” he said, “someone is threatening your sister.”

A brief silence alerted him, and he looked up. Jillian Waltham sat with a pensive expression on her face.

“Not threatening, really.”

Zach laid down the pen, feeling seriously exasperated.

“It’s more like he’s stalking her.”

Ice slid through his veins. Zach picked up the pen, all business now. “Any idea when this started?”

“Oh, yes. When she broke up with him. And it’s just like him, too. Janzen never could take no for an answer. It’s like putting up a red flag, issuing a challenge. Even if he doesn’t want it, he’ll go after it just because you told him he couldn’t have it.”

With a sigh, Zach laid down the pen again and reached for patience. “I really need a date.”

“A date?”

The squeak in her voice confused him. “Yes, please.”

“Well, all right,” she said, “but we have to take care of my sister first. She’s all the family I have.”

He stared at her for several long seconds before all became clear, and then he didn’t know whether he was amused or appalled. “Uh, you, um, misunderstand me, I think. What I need is the date your sister broke up with this boyfriend.”

“Oh! That date!” She laughed, but it was nothing like before, and the red flags of color rose in her cheeks. “I thought...but, I should have known better! You sounded a little desperate there, and a man like you wouldn’t...” She laughed again, the sound so strained and false that it made him want to shake her. She must have sensed his mood, for she took a deep breath then and said solemnly, “It was almost two months ago when they broke up. Say, May 8 or 9. Camille would be able to tell you exactly, of course.”

Of course. He cleared his throat, uncomfortable with the knowledge that she considered herself beneath him. But that wasn’t his problem. He tried to concentrate on business. Question number one. “Why, exactly, am I talking to you about this instead of your sister?”

“Oh, Camille’s scheduled for every moment,” Jillian said. “You know how it is, the station’s always sending her out on public relations stuff. It’s that local celebrity thing.”

He knew too well the demands made on and by celebrity types. “Okay, then, let’s take it from the top, Miss Waltham.”

“‘Jillian,”’ she said.

He nodded.

“Or ‘Jilly,’ if you prefer.”

He didn’t prefer, actually. The sobriquet seemed to further trivialize her somehow, but again, it wasn’t any of his business. He made himself nod and smile. “Could you start from the beginning, please, and explain exactly why you’re here?”

She slid to the very edge of her seat and confided, “It was the broken window.”

He opened his mouth to elicit an explanation, then closed it again, hoping that he would do better to let her tell it in her own way. The fallacy of that notion quickly became obvious.

“Camille says it was an accident,” Jillian went on. “and it probably was. He’s not all that coordinated. I mean, you’d think someone who’s involved with music, even if it is just advertising on the radio, could at least dance, you know, but not Janzen—not that he knows it. He doesn’t. He thinks he’s the world’s greatest dancer, just as he thinks he’s God’s gift to women. So maybe he broke it when he was trying to paint it.”

Zach realized he was grinding his teeth and relaxed his jaw to ask, “The window, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“He was painting a window?”