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stalker has never done much beyond his phone calls. Even the letters have stopped. Then he loses interest too.”
    Mark leaned forward. “Lauren, you know I’m not an alarmist. If I agreed with you, then we’d set up some simple security procedures and let it go at that. But this time is different. First of all, this is the largest media mob you’ve had hounding you by far. Maybe it’s just a slow news week, but they’re out for blood.”
    “Not to mention the fact,” Troy added, “I guarantee you we haven’t seen the last of the sleazy tabloids.”
    “Second,” Mark went on, “we listened to the message on your answering machine. Trust me when I say we’ve been doing this long enough to know when someone’s about to go over the edge.” He narrowed his gaze. “And I am more than mildly pissed that you never came to me before about the letters and the constancy of the phone calls.”
    “You have much more important business to attend to than being bothered by my little problem.” Asking for help had never been easy for her.
    “Damn it.” His hand tightened into a fist. “Now I’m really pissed off. There’s nothing more important than helping my friend. Jesus, Lauren. You’re practically family.”
    “The police—“
    “Can do a good job. More than adequate. But they don’t have the resources Phoenix does.” He pinned her with his dark gaze. “So are we clear that this time we’re in charge?”
    “Yes, yes, yes. Okay. I know you’re right.” Lauren tightened her grip on her mug. “I just hate having my life controlled by some nut who’s probably going to move on to someone else before I can blink my eyes.”
    “And that would be the best-case scenario,” Troy said. “But I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
    “What I want to know,” Mark said, “is why you never mentioned the stalker before? People like that are far from harmless, and from his messages, he’s been doing this a long time.”
    She shrugged. “There used to be more than just him but I think they got tired of me and decided to focus on others. The police did put a trace on my line but he always used throwaway phones so they gave up. I’m sure he’ll get tired of it after a while too.”
    Dan picked up his tablet and tapped it, bringing up a list he scrolled through. The smile he gave Lauren was one she knew was meant to be reassuring. “When I heard from Troy this morning, I called our office in Maryland. Our super geek, Andy, runs what I think is the computer that rules the world.” He grinned. “He calls it the Dragonslayer, and he may be right. I asked him to find every story ever written about you and send it to me in a compressed file.”
    “He can do that? Won’t it take a lot of time?”
    Dan shook his head. “Not with the Dragonslayer.”
    “But what’s the point?” she wanted to know.
    “Just getting a feel for what’s out there and what kind of thing might trigger your stalker. Is it something specific that was written, or just the general fact of your gift? I also asked him to see if other healers have been getting threats too. If so, maybe there’s some kind of link. We can have Andy run a number of different probabilities. Narrow things down.” The look on his face was serious. “I know how you protect the privacy of your clients, Lauren, but I’m going to need a list of them too.”
    She frowned. “I never give out anyone’s name. People who use my…skills often don’t like to let others know about it. Psychic healing isn’t widely accepted, you know.”
    “Still, this guy has a tie to you someplace, either you as a healer or you specifically and we have to be able to narrow the list. I promise you, these people will never know anything about this. Unless, of course, it leads back to one of them.”
    “I can’t believe anyone connected to any of my calls would do this, but…if you say it’s necessary I’ll get the list together for you. Just treat it carefully,