The Socialite and the Bodyguard. Dana Marton

not have been able to trace back, but Nash had his sources. He forwarded the note to his own e-mail account, then deleted the original.

      He didn’t have the previous threatening notes with him. They were already at a lab, along with the fur coat, to be dusted for fingerprints. They weren’t much to start with—pictures of poodles printed off the Internet, DIE in big block letters printed underneath. But now he had one more clue.

      It should have made him happy. Except that one thing about this whole setup bugged him. Why would the bastard send a picture like that? Sure, the photo would make Kayla nervous, would make her feel she wasn’t safe even in her own home. But it also narrowed the field of suspects considerably. And that was decidedly not to the sender’s advantage.

      HE DIDN’T WANT to kill her. He looked out the plane’s window and saw her face even in the clouds. He loved her. He’d hoped that harassing that dumb dog of hers would distract her from the “accidents.”

      But she wasn’t distracted, she was thinking, thinking, thinking. He could see it in her eyes every time he looked at her. And she was smart. He couldn’t let her figure it all out. She would never forgive him.

      He’d set up a last warning for her this morning, but as she was talking with the new guy, Nash, in the back while the pilot announced that soon they would be landing, he saw that fire in her eyes. And he knew what they were talking about. She was never going to quit.

      He reached for his cell phone and sent a text message. He couldn’t say he didn’t regret it, but it really was time for plan B.

      NASH LOOKED around the show area on the first floor of the hotel, checking out the various stations, the seating section for the audience and the ring. Special lighting, microphones, the judges’ table—the setup was fancy enough for a Miss America pageant. Except this show was for dogs.

      A waste of pageantry as far as he was concerned. Who would want to look at furry canines when they could be looking at hot women in bikinis?

      He finished recon and walked back toward the handful of smaller meeting rooms that were set up as storage areas for the dog show. Tom, the handler, had put some hair product for Tsini in his carry-on by accident, and since it was over the allowed ounces, airport security had confiscated the bottle. Tsini needed the special coat-shine spray or whatever for tomorrow so everyone was scrambling around. Tom and Dave were scouring the city’s specialty pet shops while Mike and Kayla went to the storage rooms that contained extra supplies for cases just like this.

      Nash headed to the back to find them and met Mike halfway there.

      “Got it?”

      Mike shook his head. “Kayla sent me off to find one of the organizers. Maybe they could tell us if there’s any and where exactly it’s at. Everything’s a mess back there.”

      “I’ll help her.” He quickened his pace. Mike shouldn’t have left her alone, not even for a few minutes.

      Kayla had specifically forbidden him to put the fear of God in her staff. She didn’t want everyone nervous, didn’t want Greg nervous, didn’t want anyone on her staff offended. They were supposed to protect her, but from where he was standing it looked as though so far she was doing all the protecting.