by Camy Tang
“You said that your friend lives on J Street?” Monica steered her car out of the post office parking lot and took a right, heading away from the center of downtown Sonoma.
“He has a house on the outskirts of downtown.”
“A house? That’s prime real estate.”
“Nathan’s family has lived in Sonoma for a few generations, but I didn’t meet him until I moved down south.”
“You worked with him on the border patrol?”
“No, he worked for the Los Angeles Police Department. We met during a joint investigation several years ago, and I found out he used to live in Sonoma. And now he’s back here again.”
“He’s working for the Sonoma PD?”
“No, he was injured in a gunfight with an L.A. drug gang—a bullet shattered a bone in his leg—so he’s retired from police work.”
Monica kept her attention on the road, but her eyes softened with sympathy. “That must be hard on him.”
Shaun didn’t know how to respond to that. He’d visited Nathan Fischer about three years ago. Shaun had been up in northern California for Christmas, and he’d stopped by to see Nathan, who had retired only a few months earlier. The strong, tall man he remembered had seemed wounded, broken, but not in body so much as in some deep inner place. He hadn’t seen him since, but when Shaun had called to ask if they could come over today, Nathan’s voice had seemed more cheerful than three years ago.
Nathan’s family’s three-story house was on a quiet street off the main roads of downtown Sonoma, with a small front yard bordered by a picket fence. Unlike the other houses on the street, which boasted modern stucco walls and new roofing, Nathan’s house hadn’t been renovated anytime in the past forty years. However, it showed signs of meticulous upkeep.
They parked along the street and entered the little gate, picking their way up the flagstone walkway to the front porch. Someone had planted peonies along the sides of the walkway, which were blooming in the warm California spring air.
Nathan opened the front door and pushed open the outer screen door before they’d even climbed the front steps. “Good to see you, Shaun.”
Here was the Nathan he remembered from the LAPD, tall and confident. His straight brown hair was a little longer than it had been before, making him look younger. But even though he smiled at Shaun, there was something about his eyes that seemed empty.
Shaun shook his hand. “Nathan, this is Monica Grant.”
She smiled and shook his hand. “Thank you for seeing us today.”
“I always have time for friends. Come on in.” Nathan limped as he led them into the front living room, but at least he wasn’t in a wheelchair anymore. “Sorry about the mess. Mom had some visitors today.” He cleared away a few used coffee cups from the oak coffee table. “Coffee? I just made a fresh pot.”
“Please.” Monica sank into an overstuffed chair. Shaun dropped into the couch next to her.
Nathan brought out three steaming mugs and placed them on the coffee table, then eased himself into the recliner, wincing a little.
“Leg still bothering you?” Shaun asked.
“Only today,” Nathan said. “I did work on the house all day yesterday before going to work last night. I just overdid it.”
“What do you do?” Monica asked.
“I’m in charge of security night shift at Glencove Towers.”
Shaun raised his eyebrows. “Nice gig.” The Glencove building in Sonoma was full of very high-end condos.
“I was lucky to get the job, with my bum leg.” He had said it without hesitation, but he blinked away a flash of pain. He sipped his coffee. “What did you need to talk to me about?”
“You still have contacts down in LAPD?”
“Sure.”
“Can you ask them to look into something for me? A cold case.”
Nathan’s eyes narrowed as they regarded Shaun. “Is this about your sister again?”
“I have more information this time—”
“Do you suddenly have proof against Phillip Bromley?” Nathan demanded.
Shaun pressed his lips together and shook his head.
“I told you this before, Shaun. Without proof, the police can’t go digging around the son of a bank CEO. I even showed you evidence I shouldn’t have because you asked me to.” Nathan sighed.
“I’m not asking you to get the LAPD to investigate Phillip Bromley.” He could do that himself, on his own. “But Monica received a note from a stalker that quoted the same line from the poet Byron that my sister received.”
Nathan’s gaze sharpened. “Before, when you asked me to look up Byron’s poetry in other stalking cases, I came up with nothing.”
“I don’t know why, maybe he messed up this time, but he used the same phrase. Maybe because he was sending Monica a dead snake with the note. He threatened to hurt her if she didn’t stop work on her free children’s clinic—another free clinic, Nathan. Clare was working on a free family planning clinic. You can’t tell me that’s all just coincidence.”
He didn’t answer at first, then said, “No, I can’t.”
“We talked to the man in San Francisco who sold the snake, and he described the man as looking like Phillip Bromley, including wearing his black leather duster.”
“A duster? Like the guy who bought the snake venom that he sent to Clare,” Nathan said.
Shaun nodded. “Sonoma PD got an ATM picture of the guy who delivered the dead snake and the note.”
“We can’t tell it’s Phillip,” Monica said, “but the man is about the same height, build and coloring. And when you take into account the black leather duster, it makes for even more coincidences.”
Nathan leaned back in the recliner and stared unseeing at the far wall as he thought. “I doubt they’d reopen the investigation.”
“I’m not asking them to,” Shaun said. “But maybe they can look into the evidence from that night again with fresh eyes.”
“They may not be able to find new evidence to prove the stalker killed Clare,” Monica said, “but anything they find could help the Sonoma PD catch the man stalking me, especially now when it seems obvious it’s the same man.”
Nathan nodded slowly. “I’ll talk to some guys I know in L.A. At the very least, I can have the files from Clare’s death sent to Sonoma PD to look at.”
The mention of his sister’s death made Shaun’s jaw clench. Would he ever reach a point when the thought of her didn’t prick him with so much pain and guilt?
“Thanks,” Shaun said.
“I’m not promising anything,” Nathan warned.
“We know,” Monica said.
Nathan nodded to her. “I’m sorry this is happening to you. I’m sorry it happened to Clare.”
They rose to go, but Monica said to Nathan, “You don’t have to walk us out. It’s not as if the front door is hard to find.” She smiled as she said it.
Nathan had started to rise from the recliner, but stopped when Monica spoke. Some of that strange empty look left his eyes as he looked at her, and Shaun realized why he was so attracted to her.
Monica had a gift for healing.
Not just as a nurse, but also touching that dark space inside and making the pain lessen a little. That was why Nathan responded to her expression and her words.
That was why Shaun had been so drawn to her from the moment he saw her again in Sonoma. Aside from their physical attraction, the dark place inside him was drawn to her lightness, that ability she had of helping him feel lighter.
Except his darkness was just too dark for anyone to see, least of all Monica Grant. He’d rather hold on to it and keep it in check himself.
Shaun shook Nathan’s hand again, and they left the house. As they approached where they’d parked the car, the scent of some weird cigarette smoke made his nose burn.
Then he realized that the hood of her car wasn’t entirely closed.
Shaun shoved Monica behind him and scanned the empty street. There were silent houses al
l around, some with sheer drapes over the large front windows that could be hiding a watcher in the shadows. He would be observing them, maybe with binoculars, enjoying Shaun’s futile alarm, Monica’s shock and fear.
The thought made him grind his teeth in frustration.
“Shaun.” Monica clutched at his arm, her fingers digging into his skin. “The backseat.”
He took a few steps forward.
White paper had been savagely shredded all over her backseat. Her clinic’s business proposal. Even the manila envelope had been ripped into tiny pieces, as if the stalker could destroy her plans for the free clinic if he destroyed this paper evidence.
“Don’t show fear,” Shaun told her. “He wants you to be afraid.”
“I’m not afraid.” Her voice shook.
He searched the street again. Had that curtain moved? Had sunlight glinted off something in another window? He couldn’t tell where the stalker might be hiding. If he could disable her car alarm, he definitely could break into some of these houses, some of which didn’t have house alarms.
“We can’t just stand here,” Monica said. “We have to call the police.”
Shaun didn’t want to. He wanted to wait to see if the stalker showed himself. But as the minutes ticked by, he realized it was useless. The stalker could have exited any house’s back door and escaped over a back fence, and they’d never see him.
“Fine. But let’s do this inside Nathan’s house.”
They hurried back and surprised Nathan, whose hands were sudsy with dishwashing soap. “What happened?”
“The stalker broke into Monica’s car,” Shaun said. “We need to call the police.”
Nathan’s spine stiffened and he quickly pulled them inside. He looked up and down the block before closing the front door. “Did you see him?”
“No, but I think he was watching us from one of the other houses.”
Monica inhaled sharply, but she didn’t say anything. Instead, she pulled out her cell phone and dialed. “Aunt Becca? I need you to call Detective Carter for me. I’m at 451 J Street. The stalker broke into my car.” Her voice wobbled and her face had gone pale, but she kept her shoulders straight and continued, “I’m fine, I promise. Aunt Becca, did you already deliver to the dry cleaner those coats we gave you?”
Shaun and Nathan exchanged confused looks.
“This morning? Call them right away and ask them not to clean them. It’s important.” She hung up.
“Your coats?” Shaun was starting to understand Monica enough by now to know that she wouldn’t ask about something frivolous unless she had a good reason.
She nodded. “If I can get to those coats before they’re dry cleaned, I might have a clue about the stalker.” Her face was still tense, but she had a triumphant gleam in her eye. “He might have made his first mistake.”
SIX
Monica had to wait almost two and a half days before she could see if she was right, and it seemed like an eternity. When Aunt Becca called the dry cleaner to stop the cleaning order, she’d just caught them before they closed for the weekend.
So Monica spent Saturday helping out at the spa since her dad was talking with Shaun’s father about his hotel plans and Naomi was taking time off to work on her wedding plans. Monica gave Shaun the weekend off since she’d be surrounded by family and also Detective Carter, who joined Aunt Becca for church on Sunday.
There were no notes, no gruesome gifts. But the reprieve only put Monica on edge, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Monday morning, she waited in the foyer of the house for Aunt Becca to get ready to go and for Shaun to arrive to pick them up. They were going to the dry cleaner to be there the minute they opened that morning.
A knock sounded at the door. “I’ll get it, Evita,” Monica called to the housekeeper. She checked the video monitor that showed the front stoop and saw their regular postman, Mas, so she disabled the house alarm and unlocked the front door.
He smiled as he saw her. “Good morning, Miss Monica.” He passed over a bundle of mail—just envelopes, no packages or florist boxes.
Monica didn’t realize she’d been tense until her muscles relaxed. She took the envelopes from the postman.
“Have a good day,” he said.
“Thanks, Mas.” She closed the door and reengaged the alarm. It hadn’t been such a habit a year ago, but when an intruder broke into Rachel’s room, they all had decided it was better to be safe than sorry. Now, she was doubly glad she reengaged the alarm almost without thinking these days.
She flipped through the mail. Bill, bill, advertisement. A personal note to her father—she set that on the hallway table. Some legal-sized business envelopes for her father also found their way onto the table.
Then she saw a manilla envelope addressed to her.
The ground tilted under her feet for a sickening moment, and she reached out to grab the edge of the table. Her heart knocked against her chest. Calm down. It’s just an envelope.
But there was a faint scent of cigarette smoke, the same smell from her car.
They had to get to those coats so she could find out if she was right about that cigarette smell.
The envelope trembled in her hand, so she set it down. Gloves. She’d get gloves. Not just to help Detective Carter collect evidence, but also because she couldn’t bear the thought of touching something the stalker also touched.
She had plenty of exam gloves next to the first-aid kit in the library. She grabbed the entire box and also removed a scalpel handle and fresh blade that she kept in the kit.
She almost cut open her finger as she attached the blade to the scalpel because her hands were shaking, but she grit her teeth and focused, and the blade went on smoothly. She sliced open the top of the envelope, not touching the gummed section of the flap, and upended the contents onto the table.
Photos of her, candids taken with a zoom lens. Some with Shaun, some without. A few from early Sunday morning, but none from that afternoon or evening when she’d gone to lunch with her family and then gone shopping in Napa. The pictures looked like they’d been processed at any automated photo service.
She forced herself to look through the photos one by one. Several had bull’s eyes drawn over her face with a red marker pen, and the sight made her shudder.
The strong smell of that distinctive type of cigarette wafted up from the pictures. He’d handled the photos a bit before putting them in the envelope, enough so that the cigarette he’d been smoking, or maybe just the scent on his clothes, had attached to the surface of the pictures.
She picked up the envelope and shook it upside down to see if there were any other photos, and a white square piece of paper fell out.
I could have killed you at any time, but I am merciful. Stop work on your clinic now before you get hurt. I don’t want to kill you, but I will if you persist.
As she picked the note up between her gloved fingers, she realized it was very thick, creamy white stock paper. She held it up to the light streaming in through the windows above, and saw a tiny Japanese maple leaf-shaped watermark on the bottom right corner.
She knew this paper. It was a distinctive watermark used by one of her favorite stationery shops in San Francisco, a very expensive store situated on Union Square. She didn’t buy much from them because she couldn’t justify paying so much for just paper, but she had purchased some pretty stationery for her sisters for Christmas a few months ago, and she had also bought some paper for business correspondence, all of which had this watermark.
Again, a high-end store, like the place he’d bought the snakes.
“Okay, I’m ready…” Aunt Becca paused as she reached the bottom steps of the stairs. “Monica, what’s wrong?”
Monica didn’t answer fast enough, and her aunt’s eye fell on the envelope and pictures on the table, and the note still in her hand.
“Give that to me,” Aunt Becca said firmly.
“No—”
“I raised you from the time y
ou were eight years old,” her aunt said in a hard voice Monica hadn’t ever heard from her before. “You girls are like my daughters, and you will not lie to me and tell me that’s not what I think it is.” She reached over to the table and grabbed an extra glove, snapping it on. “Hand it over.”
She did.
Aunt Becca’s delicate skin seemed to grow more papery as she read the note. She whipped out her cell phone. “I’m calling Horatio right now.”
“Do it later. I want to get to the dry cleaner.” Until the words flew out of her mouth, Monica hadn’t realized she could sound so normal even with the storm raging inside her stomach.
“The dry cleaner can wait.”
“What’s going on?” Her father wheeled himself into the front foyer. She knew he’d been in the kitchen and had hoped he couldn’t hear her talking to her aunt, but apparently he had.
Aunt Becca hesitated, but then held out the notecard. “Don’t touch it without gloves,” she warned him. At that moment, Detective Carter answered the phone and she said, “Hello, Horatio? You need to come to the house right now.”
Monica’s father pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and took the card between the cloth folds. His bushy eyebrows, once golden but now ash-blond, settled low over his thunderous eyes as he read the note.
The churning storm in Monica’s stomach turned into a tornado as he glared at her.
“You are going to stop this clinic nonsense right now,” he said.
His commanding voice did what it always did to her—made her set her chin and fire back, “No, I’m not.”
“Don’t be a stubborn fool.”
“I’m trying not to be a victim.”
“What good is your pride when your family is hurt?” her father raged. “This man knows our home address.”
“He could have found it out anytime in the past few weeks,” Monica answered. “All he had to do was follow one of us home from the spa.”
Her father didn’t reply, but his lips were bloodless and his eyes sparked.
