"Because she didn't tell me about it," Caleb said with exaggerated patience. "She told Lissa. I don't think she wants me or any of her brothers to know what's happening. She doesn't want to come running to us for help."

Zach nodded. It made sense. At least, he supposed that it did. Family things rarely made sense to an outsider.

"OK. You want me to talk to her-"

"No."

"No?"

"You talk to her, you'd have to tell her that I clued you in, and then she'll know that Lissa clued me in, and then it'll be exactly the same as if the Wilde family sat down and discussed the problem. James would be furious."

"Your sister's name is James?"

"It's an old family joke. See, when she was a kid, like I said, she was always so logical..."

"Yeah, fine," Zach said impatiently. "So, you want me to protect her? And get enough on this guy to take it to the cops?"

"Exactly."

"Without letting her know I'm doing it?"

"I knew you weren't as dumb as you look, Castelianos."

"Very funny. Look, Caleb, getting the goods on this man is one thing. Protecting a woman without letting her know I'm protecting her is another."

"Not if you work your way into her life. Get to know her. Find out what's happening from the inside out. That's the only way this'll work, man."

Zach raised an eyebrow. "I can see you've got this all planned."

"Well, I gave it some thought, yes."

"And?"

"And, she's a Realtor."

A Realtor. A lady Realtor. Hadn't he had enough of those lately?

"She's a Realtor," Caleb repeated. "You've got a condo in a building somebody's always talking about." He spread his hands wide. "Tell her you're thinking of selling."

"Caleb, look. I don't see how this can work. I mean, she'll see right through me. "

"Are you telling me one of my sisters is up to outsmarting the great Zacharias Castelianos?"

"That's it. Play dirty."

"I can't make light of it, man. This guy who's obsessed with her, who knows what he's capable of? This Steven Young-"

Zach sat up straight. "Who?"

"Young. Steven Young."

A chill danced along Zach's spine. He knew that name. Knew it? He'd never forget it, but maybe it was a common name. Maybe the world was full of Steven Youngs and full of beautiful women who were Realtors.

"Where does your sister live?" he said, trying to sound as if he were asking the question casually.

"Yeah, well, that's the one hard part. Jaimie-"

Jaimie. Jesus, her name was Jaimie...

"Jaimie lives in D.C., but I figure you probably still spend a lot of time there... Zach? Something wrong?"

"Jaimie Wilde," Zach said slowly. "And she works for a real estate company in D.C."

"Right."

"I don't suppose you have a photo of her..."

Caleb dug out his cellphone, turned it on, called up a screen of pictures.

"Here she is. My sister, Jaimie."

Zach took the phone.

His pulse did an erratic little swing. It was her. The beautiful face. The blue eyes. A smile that would win an answering smile from any man who breathed.

J.W. The blonde who haunted his dreams. Who'd spent the night in his bed and disappeared before he'd had enough of her. Who'd played innocent even though it turned out she'd been cheating on her boyfriend.

On Steven Young.

"Zach?"

Caleb's questioning voice called him back. He looked up, tried for a non-committal expression as he handed the phone over.

"Yeah. You know..." He tried for another smile even though he was pretty certain the first hadn't worked. "You know, things aren't always what they seem."

"Meaning?"

"Well, I just, ah, I just wonder...is there-is there any chance you have the facts wrong? Is your sister, is she, maybe, involved with Young? Could this be, like, a lovers' quarrel?"

Caleb Wilde's mouth became a hard, determined line.

"This is not, like, a lovers' quarrel. This has nothing to do with lovers, Castelianos. My sister is in trouble. She's got a stalker. She needs help. And if you aren't up for this-"

Zach reached across the table, grabbed Caleb's arm as he started to get to his feet.

"I need her home address. The location of her office. Her phone numbers. Give me everything you've got." His eyes narrowed to flinty slits. "I am absolutely up for this. More than you could possibly know."

CHAPTER NINE.

Zach prepared to leave for D. C.

He was accustomed to making last-minute travel plans: a note for his housekeeper, a voice mail for his driver, clothes and toiletries neatly arranged in his duffel bag. He slid his Heckler & Koch 9mm into a holster.

Just another day at the office.

When he was done, he checked his watch. It was still early. Barely 10 a.m. There were shuttle flights to D.C. virtually the entire day, but maybe he'd drive down instead.

With luck, he could do it in a little over three hours. Between cabbing to La Guardia and going through airport security, he might even save some time. Plus, being behind the wheel for a few hours would give him time to lay out a strategy.

Of course, when he got to D.C., he'd need to rent a less obvious car than the Porsche for surveillance.

Surveillance.

A world of complexity in one word, he thought as he walked briskly to the garage where he stored the Porsche.

There were no specific rules about surveillance aside from the obvious one.

The watcher didn't want the watchee to know he was there.

Aside from that, everything was up for grabs.

Where was the subject located? An isolated farmhouse required a very different technique than an apartment in a city high-rise.

What was the goal of the surveillance? Was it to establish the pattern of the subject's daily existence? Was it to keep track of those who came and went? Was it to protect the subject, either with or without the subject's knowledge?

A garage jockey brought out the Porsche. Zach handed him a tip, tossed his duffel in the back and slipped behind the wheel.

Caleb had made it sound as if there was only one way to handle the situation. He wanted Zach to insinuate himself into Jaimie Wilde's life.

Zach eased the car into traffic and headed for the Lincoln Tunnel.

Only one problem, starting with Caleb getting coldly furious at the suggestion that she was, or had been, romantically involved with Steven Young. And he didn't even know the rest, that Young had telephoned with a story about Jaimie being his fiancee, or that he'd claimed she was s.e.xually promiscuous.

And he sure as h.e.l.l didn't know that Zach had slept with her.

Zach certainly wasn't about to enlighten him. There wasn't any need. But there was a need for him to find out who was lying to whom about what. Young, to him? Or Jaimie, to her sister?

Women were complex creatures capable of more Machiavellian schemes than most men could imagine. That was a simple fact of life he'd learned personally as well as professionally.

If what Young had said was true, if he'd been Jaimie Wilde's lover, her fiance, one scenario could be that the relationship had gone south and accusing him of terrorizing her was a lie she'd invented to get even.

Don't tell our brothers, she'd warned her sister, but maybe she'd hoped the sister would do exactly that and the brothers would beat Young to within an inch of his life.

Maybe she was the kind of female who'd get off on that kind of thing.

Tunnel traffic was heavy. No surprise there. Zach eased off on the gas and reached for the Americano Venti he'd bought en route to the tunnel.

Or maybe the relationship had gone south and Young was desperate to win her back. It could be that he wasn't following her, that he was simply tagging after her like a lovesick schoolboy.

As for him having been in her place... Why not? If he'd been her lover, he'd probably have a key to her apartment. He could have let himself in, hoping for a reconciliation when she came home, but changed his mind and left before she got there.

All bets were off, however, if Young had lied about being Jaimie's lover. About her appet.i.te for casual s.e.x.

If the guy was a crackpot spouting lies, and everything Jaimie had told her sister was true, that would make for a dangerous situation. It would require a different approach. Normally, that would mean an upfront disclosure to the subject that he'd been a.s.signed as her bodyguard, but this wasn't a normal situation. Caleb didn't want the subject to know she was being guarded. a.s.suming the subject needed guarding in the first place.

The subject.

It was safer to think of her that way.

No matter who was lying, who was telling the truth, the basic facts would not change. He had slept with Jaimie Wilde and she had walked out on him.

Zach's lips compressed.

Why the h.e.l.l that should still be bothering him was beyond comprehension, but it did. And that note she'd left. That G.o.dd.a.m.n note...

A horn blared behind him. Once. Twice. Three times.

"Idiot," Zach muttered.

Hitting the horn wasn't going to make the jam of trucks and cars go any faster. At least he could see daylight ahead. Once he exited the tunnel, traffic might ease a little.

He had to keep his mind on business. On checking things out.

On ignoring Caleb's directive.

He would not work his way into Jaimie Wilde's life until and unless he was sure that she needed protection. Once he established that he'd call her, tell her that he'd decided to put his condo on the market after all.

The tone of her note made it clear that she'd be willing to deal with him in a relationship that was strictly business.

No s.e.x.

He lived by simple rules and one was that he never got involved with women who were clients or women with whom he worked. She would not know she was a subject, but he'd know and that was what counted.

Besides, there were endless reasons he had no desire to have s.e.x with her again. If Young had told the truth and she fell in and out of bed with faceless men... He had no wish to be one of them. If Young had lied and she wasn't into having indiscriminate s.e.x, she was still a woman who treated s.e.x with a casual att.i.tude.

Zach winced.

Even he could see the gender bias in that kind of thinking.

It just rankled that she'd done one h.e.l.l of a job of convincing him that she'd wanted s.e.x with him because she had wanted him as badly as he had wanted her. As badly as he still wanted her, dammit, even now, with a witch's brew of questions churning in his head.