Page 35 of K-9 Prime Target

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Liam spent an hour in the hotel’s business center, printing photos and other information to give to Doug and the ski patrollers. Then he snapped a leash onto Angel and headed across the plaza to Doug’s office.

Kristie greeted him with a smile. “Mr. Davies! It’s good to see you.”

“I need a few minutes of Mr. Elam’s time,” he said.

She stood. “I’ll let him know you’re here.”

She slipped into Doug’s office, but returned shortly. “He says you can have ten minutes, tops.”

“This won’t take longer than that.”

Doug, wearing an expensive looking sweater in a deep blue that matched his eyes, looked up from his desk, his expression wary. “What can I do for you, Liam?”

“Take a look at these.” Liam tossed the stills of the dark-helmeted man lurking on the outskirts of Nina’s photo shoots onto the desk.

Doug scanned the blurry images. “What is this?”

“That may be the man who’s been stalking Nina.”

Doug looked again. “These shots are out of focus. Or his face is covered. I can’t tell anything from these.” He pushed them away.

“There’s a sticker on his ski helmet for Mt. Hood Meadows.”

“So? Lots of people have helmets with stickers from places they’ve skied.”

“That’s the only sticker on his helmet. The ski resort is in Oregon. I haven’t seen even one other person here at SkyCrest with that sticker.”

Doug sat back in his chair. “What do you want me to do about it?”

“Pass that information along to resort security. Nina believes that could be Aaron Nicholson, the man who attacked her in Lake Placid four years ago. Make sure the lift technicians see it, too. Anyone who sees this man should call security and/or the sheriff’s office. There’s a restraining order against this guy. He’s not supposed to be within a hundred yards of Nina.”

“Then if he’s eating lunch in a resort restaurant or standing in a lift line and Nina isn’t around, we have no right to stop him. He’s a paying customer like anyone else.”

“I have photographic proof that he’s been a lot closer to Nina than a hundred yards.”

Doug crossed his arms over his chest. “Then you need to take your photos to the sheriff. I’m not going to put my staff in a position to be sued by a guy who’s just here to ski. You don’t even know if this is Nicholson.”

Liam glared at him, disbelieving. “Don’t you want to protect Nina?”

“Of course I want to protect her. But we live in a litigious society. The sheriff can arrest this man if they have proof he has harmed Nina, or if they witness him less than a hundred yards away from her. But the law has declared he’s a free man. He can come to this resort, buy a lift ticket and ski here, as long as he doesn’t interact with Nina.”

“He sent her those notes.”

“Calling someone darling and telling them you hope they had a good night is not threatening. And you have no proof he sent them to Nina. No signature. No fingerprints. No one saw him put the notes on her door or her car.”

Marlena had been talking to Doug, and clearly they were reading from the same script. Liam wanted to protest that Doug was wrong, but strictly speaking, he wasn’t. Unless Nicholson approached Nina in public or sent a note that contained more than innocuous pleasantries, he was free to be in the same town and at the same ski resort.

“Give security the photos,” he said. “Tell them to watch for this guy anywhere near Nina.”

“I’ll do that, but you should talk to Nina about this. Maybe it would be a good idea for her to get out of town for a while. If she’s not here, this guy, if he is harassing her, will leave.”

“You want her to leave in the middle of the season. What about her job?”

“We get applications for ski patrollers every week. We’ll find someone else. Nina can try again with us next year. Or any resort would be happy to have a silver medalist on staff.”

Liam wanted to protest that they couldn’t just let Nina go so easily. But he wouldn’t waste his breath. He turned and left and hurried past Kristie without saying a word.