Savage Alpha (Alpha 8) by Carole Mortimer Page A

at Lily as he drove them both back to the theater. “There’s absolutely no reason to think these attacks are connected to what’s been happening to you.”
    Lily’s hands were clenched on her thighs. She didn’t believe that, and she doubted Jonas did either. It was surely too much of a coincidence this had happened at the same time as she was being hounded by a stalker?
    She still couldn’t believe Charlie was dead.
    In his late fifties, Charlie Driscoll had been doorman at the Majestic Theater in London for over twenty years, since he was involved in a car accident that had left him with a permanent limp and necessitated he use a walking stick. The same walking stick someone had used to kill him.
    Charlie was a widower but spoke often of his two children and six grandchildren, was always cheerful and— Was… Past tense. Because someone had hit him over the head, repeatedly, before leaving him lying on the floor in a pool of his own blood.
    And Evan… Dear God, Evan was in a coma, having suffered similar head injuries that might or might not prove fatal too. Lily had wanted to go straight to the hospital to be with him, but Jonas had insisted they had to go to the theater and talk to the police before they did anything else.
    After Lily’s initial bout of tears, when she had clung to Jonas for comfort, she now felt numb inside. All she could think of now, those thoughts going round and round in a constant loop inside her head, was that Charlie was dead and Evan seriously injured.
    And if it was connected to her stalker, then it was all her fault.
    That latter possibility consumed her and allowed for no thoughts of anything or anyone else.
    She didn’t want to think about being in her kitchen earlier with Jonas.
    “We’ll know more about what happened after talking with the police.” Jonas reached out to briefly squeeze her hands, inwardly cursing himself for having decided Charlie was one of the people he would talk to this evening rather than earlier.
    Despite what Jonas had said to Lily, he had a feeling Charlie’s death was connected to whoever had spray-painted Lily’s dressing room earlier. Charlie was meticulous in keeping a record of who went in and out of the theater, and it was highly likely whoever was responsible for the spray-painting had returned after the matinee performance in order to silence Charlie before he could add two and two together and come up with the correct answer as to who that person might be.
    Jonas was eager to get a look at Charlie’s visitors’ book.
    He was less sure as to the motive for attacking Evan Butler, but it had obviously been done by the same person, so perhaps Evan had only been unlucky enough to interrupt the attack on Charlie? Or maybe he had recognized the attacker?
    Or it could be more personal than that? If the stalker knew anything about Lily, and he obviously did, then he would know Evan was a friend of hers, and that the two of them often had coffee together after the show. Evan made no secret of the fact he had a boyfriend, but that wouldn’t stop a mentally unbalanced stalker from suspecting there was more to the friendship between Evan and Lily, which meant he could have seen Evan as a possible rival for her affections.
    Whatever the reasoning, the attack this evening was obviously meant to silence both men.
    “I think the police intend for us to talk to them, not the other way round.” Lily sighed. “And I’m so sorry for dragging you into this.”
    “It’s not a problem.”
    “I know how much my brothers hate it when they have to deal with the police.”
    “Not my favorite thing either.” Jonas shrugged. “But in our line of work, it happens all the time.” That work had occasionally brought him into contact with members of the homicide department of the British police force, and with any luck, he might know one or two of the people investigating tonight. If so, he might be able to persuade them into giving him information on the