Stalker in the Shadows (Love Inspired Suspense)

by Camy Tang

  Aunt Becca got off the phone. “Horatio’s on his way, and I asked him to pick up the coats from the dry cleaner, too.”

  “You did?” Monica felt faintly embarrassed to have her aunt’s boyfriend picking up their laundry, but then realized it might be a good thing after all.

  The home telephone rang, and Evita’s voice floated faintly from the kitchen as she answered. In a minute, she’d entered the front foyer. “Mr. Grant, Mr. O’Neill is on the phone for you.”

  Her father wheeled himself toward the library, but he said over his shoulder, “I am going to talk to you about this later.” The library door shut behind him.

  Monica closed her eyes. “All he does is talk to me,” she said softly.

  Aunt Becca’s arm wrapped around her shoulders. “He’s only concerned for you.”

  “One of these days I’d like him to actually listen to me.” She could have explained why the clinic was so important to her. She could have explained the precautions she’d been taking to protect herself, and how they’d been drawing the stalker out little by little. There was so much they were discovering about him. They were getting closer to catching him, she could feel it.

  At that moment, the doorbell rang. “That’ll be Shaun.”

  It was. He looked through the photos and his expression grew darker. Then he said, “Do you have a camera? Detective Carter will take these with him, so let’s take pictures so we have a copy.”

  “Good idea.” She went up to her room and returned with her laptop and a digital camera, and they took pictures of the pictures. Monica set her laptop up on the dining room table and they had just connected the camera for uploading the pictures when the doorbell rang again.

  They let in Detective Carter with his arms full of dry cleaning. Once they were all inside and settled into the living room, Monica handed the envelope to the detective. “We used gloves when handling it.” She handed him a pair.

  “Good.” He pulled the gloves on and looked through the pictures.

  When he came to the note, Monica said, “Hold it up to the light.” When he did, she continued, “That’s a very distinctive watermark used by Greywell’s Stationers, a store at Union Square in San Francisco.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I bought stationery there for my sisters for Christmas a few months ago. I also bought some paper for business correspondence.”

  “All this stationer’s paper has this watermark?”

  “Yes, it’s a Japanese maple leaf. Greywell’s is a very high-end store. I don’t usually buy much from them.”

  “Their paper and journals are very popular with many of the wealthier spa clients,” Aunt Becca said.

  Shaun said, “More evidence that he’s wealthy.”

  She nodded. “At first I thought he might just be willing to pay a lot to scare me. Clare’s snake venom wouldn’t come cheap, and neither did the dead snakes. And maybe that tourist guy would only pose as a decoy if he paid him five thousand dollars. But stationery like this is a luxury for people who have a lot of money.”

  Detective Carter nodded, then put the envelope and pictures in an evidence bag. “Now, why did you need me to pick up these coats?” He reached to where he’d dropped the coats on the sofa and handed them to Monica.

  She pawed through them, pulling out three of them. “These are coats I wore to three events in the past two weeks. Did you notice the cigarette smell on the photos?”

  “The same as your car.”

  “And the same as the snake in the florist’s box. When I first got the snake, I knew there was something familiar about the smoke smell. It’s not from a normal cigarette. It’s something European, maybe. But I couldn’t remember where I’d smelled it before, until I smelled it at the car.”

  She sniffed the first coat, but it only had a very slight cigarette smell, maybe from transfer from another coat. Same with the second coat. But the third coat, the one she’d worn to the Zoe banquet, had the strong odor clinging to the shoulders and sleeves.

  “Here, smell this.” She passed it to the detective. “I remembered smelling that cigarette scent when I walked into a coatroom to get my coat at the end of some event, but I couldn’t remember which one. That’s why I needed the coats before they’d been dry cleaned. I wore that one to the Zoe banquet.”

  Shaun’s eyes were like gas burners. “That means you met him there.”

  “Yes, a little over a week ago.” Monica gave the detective the information about the banquet.

  “I’ll talk to the event director and get a guest list,” Carter said. “Do you remember who you talked to that night about your clinic?”

  “It was about twenty people, but some of them were women. I got people’s business cards, but I have to figure out which card I got at which event. I’ll get the list to you.”

  “Do it quickly.” He gave her a hard look with his steel gray eyes. “Don’t think for a moment that I don’t know what you’re doing.”

  She returned his gaze. “One of them might be the stalker, but the rest of them are still investors for my free clinic, Detective. I’m not about to completely ignore them until you catch this guy.”

  Aunt Becca gave a small moan. “I’m so glad your father is still talking with Mr. O’Neill and didn’t hear you say that.”

  “She’s hired me to protect her,” Shaun said. “I’ll make sure nothing happens to her.”

  Aunt Becca smiled warmly at him. “I’m so glad she has you, Shaun. You make me feel so much better about all this.”

  But then she surprised Monica by turning to her and saying, “I don’t know why this clinic is so important to you, but I know you have your reasons. And I know you hate how this stalker is trying to manipulate you, and I can understand your anger. Just don’t be too reckless, okay?”

  Her aunt’s words were like a mug of hot cocoa. Aunt Becca had always seemed to understand her so much better than her father, than her sisters. Maybe because at heart, Aunt Becca was a bit of a wild child like Monica.

  The detective finally rose to leave, and Aunt Becca walked him out to his car.

  Shaun and Monica headed back to the dining room, where the camera had uploaded the photos. They looked through them one by one on her computer.

  She smiled as she saw the photo of the notecard.

  Shaun’s eyes narrowed. “What are you planning?”

  “Those investors from the Zoe banquet? I’m going to invite them to my party.”

  “Do you really think that’s wise?”

  “Every time I deliberately ignore his warnings, he does something to reveal more about himself.”

  Shaun looked thoughtful. “Mostly true,” he conceded.

  “He must be stewing with anger to be doing this against me.”

  “Or crazy.”

  “Or both. If I get him upset, he might reveal more than he intended to.”

  “Or he might come after you. He’ll skip the threatening part and head right into the murdering part.”

  She turned to face him. “But you’ll protect me, right?” Without thinking, she touched his hand, and then realized what a mistake it was.

  His skin was warmer than she expected it to be, the tendons tight under her touch. He seemed startled at her touch for a brief moment, then his hand turned over and he enfolded her fingers in his.

  “Yes, I’ll do everything I can to protect you.”

  “I’m counting on you.” She yanked her hand away harder than she intended to. She cleared her throat and looked at the notecard again. “I need you to be on your game.”

  “More than usual?” he asked dryly.

  She gave him a sidelong look. “More than usual. Because I’m going to send the invitations on the same Greywell’s stationery that the stalker used.”

  Would he notice? She hoped so. She was throwing down the gauntlet.

  Shaun squinted at the copy of the stalker photo in his hand, then at the church across the street. He took a step to his right, then a step to his l
eft.

  “Well?” Monica called to him. She stood on the church front steps, in the same position as in the photo.

  Except Shaun couldn’t figure out the angle of where the stalker had been when he took the shot.

  Maybe it was the fact the photo had been taken with a zoom lens. He pulled out a camera with a zoom lens that he’d borrowed from his brother Brady and spied Monica through the lens. It wasn’t quite right.…

  Then he remembered to squat down, since the stalker was a few inches shorter than he was. Except the picture still didn’t match what he saw in his camera. He kept getting lower and lower until he was almost on his knees. That’s when he realized the stalker must have been sitting. Yes, that was the angle. He gave Monica a thumb’s-up and she hurried across the street to him, checking for traffic before she crossed the road.

  He spun around to see what was directly behind him. He stood in front of the window of Captain Caffeine’s Espresso, a new coffeeshop. The storefront had been a rundown donut shop until the owner, Thomas Chadwick, had bought it and renovated it. Now it looked like it belonged on the streets of Rome. Tables and chairs were set up throughout the wide space, and there was one directly behind the window where Shaun was standing, in the corner of the shop, against the wall.

  However, because it had become so popular with both locals and tourists, the café was typically full of people, like it was today. Would anyone have noted a man who sat at the table in the corner?

  Thomas Chadwick, Captain Caffeine himself, was behind the counter making the coffee drinks at the huge gleaming espresso machine. He smiled and nodded to Monica when he saw her. “Want your usual? I’ve got a white chocolate mocha with your name on it.”

  “That would be great, Tom. But I also wanted to know if you could help me out.”

  “Sure.”

  “Did you or any of your staff notice a guy sitting at that corner table Sunday morning, around nine o’clock?” That’s when they’d figured out the photo had been taken. They’d had to figure out the times for each of the photos she received.

  Tom sent a squinty glance at the table, then frowned as he frothed milk in a frothing pitcher. “That table at nine? I should remember, we don’t have many people that early on Sunday morning. Why?”

  “Well…I think he was spying on me coming out of church.” Monica’s light tone didn’t make too much out of it.

  Tom’s mouth quirked up at the corners as he tapped the bottom of the frothing pitcher against the smooth counter. “Secret admirer?”

  “More like annoying admirer,” Monica said.

  “Let’s see…Sunday morning I was working the machine most of the time because my other barista is on baby leave. But I did walk around to straighten tables around eight-thirty or so.”

  He paused as he poured the frothed milk into a wide-mouthed latte mug, creating a fern leaf design in the top. He handed it to a waiting customer, then turned back to Monica. “I think I do remember a guy there. Does your admirer smoke?”

  Shaun’s shoulders tensed. After Monica had sent the party invitations, she and Shaun had spent the past few days tracking down the camera angles for each of the photos and interviewing people. The eyewitness accounts had been pretty varied—some said the man was blond, others brown, others redheaded. This was the first time someone had mentioned the cigarette smoke.

  Monica quickly replied, “Yes.”

  “Yeah, I could smell it on the jacket he was wearing. Not your usual cigarette smell, but something more harsh.”

  “What kind of jacket was he wearing?” Shaun asked.

  Tom gestured to the top of his thigh. “Regular sports jacket. Dark brown. At first I thought he might be going to church, but he had on jeans and heavy workboots. I remember that because he tracked a bit of mud into the store.”

  “I saw him, too,” said the girl manning the register, who had been listening. “There weren’t many people, so when we weren’t taking orders, I was chatting with Angie behind the counter, and I remember seeing him at the table.”

  “What else did he look like?” Shaun asked.

  Tom shrugged. “He was just a normal-looking guy. Brown hair. I think brown eyes. Marla, help me out here. Did you pay more attention to what he looked like?”

  “Big nose,” Marla said.

  It sounded like Phillip, especially the big nose. “Were his eyes close together?” Shaun asked.

  Marla shook his head. “No, I don’t think so.”

  So it hadn’t been Phillip? But what about the cigarette smoke? Or perhaps it was just part of how eyewitnesses weren’t always accurate? He remembered the blond/brown/redheaded men people had claimed to see.

  “I think he was tanned,” Marla said.

  “He was?” Tom said. “I didn’t think so. The entire store is dark in the mornings because the window faces west.”

  Marla shrugged. “I thought he was, but I could be wrong. If he was tanned, it wasn’t more than a lot of the other tourists.”

  Tanned? Phillip was rather pale. But even Marla wasn’t certain about that.

  “Yeah, that’s all I can think of,” the girl said before another customer came up to order.

  Tom made Monica’s white chocolate mocha, which Shaun had to admit smelled fantastic. Then Tom poured a cup of brewed coffee and handed it to Shaun.

  He dug in his back pocket for his wallet, but Tom waved him away. “On the house. Just make sure you protect this girl against those annoying admirers.” He winked at the two of them, then set to work to make the next customer’s drink.

  As they exited the espresso shop, the back of Shaun’s neck buzzed angrily. He scanned the street even as he grabbed Monica’s arm to pull her closer to him. He felt her muscles tense.

  “Is he watching us?” she whispered.

  “He might be. He’s probably laughing at us, enjoying seeing us try to track him down.”

  She shivered. “I don’t feel like he’s laughing. I feel like he’s angry.”

  Her words made him realize that he felt that, too. The prickling feeling of being watched was nothing like when he’d known the stalker was observing them at Monica’s car several days ago. Then, he had almost felt the stalker’s glee at upsetting them.

  Now, the feeling of being watched was like a burning gaze, ugly and snarling. What had changed? Were they getting too close?

  “Let’s get to the car.” He moved her swiftly across the street to where they’d parked the car in the empty church parking lot. Monica had gotten in and started the engine even before he’d climbed into the passenger seat and closed the door. She pulled out of the parking lot at a fast clip.

  But as she drove, he noticed her hands shaking where they gripped the steering wheel. She gave a sobbing breath. “I’m tired of this. I’m so tired of being watched.”

  “Pull over.”

  “No.” She inhaled long and deep, then let it out. “I’m fine. It just got to me for a moment.”

  He knew she wasn’t fine, but he also didn’t know what to say to her. He himself kept his feelings under control like a closed soda bottle that had been shaken up. Feelings were messy. It was easier to just do his work, keep himself busy, and eventually it would be okay.

  Was he talking about Monica or himself?

  She drove back to her home, but after parking the car in the multi-car garage, she rested her forehead against the steering wheel and closed her eyes.

  “You’re okay,” he said to her.

  “I will be,” she whispered. “I just need a moment. I can’t let Dad see me like this.”

  “You mean, upset?”

  “He would say, ‘I told you so.’ It’s his favorite thing to say to me. Maybe because I almost never do what he wants me to do.”

  “Never?” Shaun had always been the straight-arrow son, the one who always listened to his dad. Maybe because he was the oldest, and it had been his job to watch out for his siblings when his dad was gone working on another hotel.

  “Dad always wants
me to do things that just aren’t me. I went into nursing rather than working at the spa. I took a job at a hospital in San Francisco rather than a posh position Dad had gotten for me at a private health resort in Sonoma. I’m working on this free children’s clinic rather than becoming a resident nurse at the spa.”

  “Maybe he just wants you close to him.”

  She shook her head. “Dad has always wanted to rein me in. His wild child.”

  Yes, he could see how Monica would be the wild one. Full of energy and fire. Augustus Grant seemed to be intense in his focus, but not as passionate as his youngest daughter.

  “Do you know what’s the dumbest part of it all? I’m always so surprised when Dad just dismisses anything I do as unimportant. Most of the time, what I do is something he didn’t approve of anyway, so why do I feel so hurt when he doesn’t value any of my accomplishments?”

  He didn’t have an answer for her. His father had always made him feel that his decisions were his own, and had supported him no matter what he chose.

  But Shaun did know one thing—the hurt in Monica’s voice was real, and everything inside him wanted to protect her from the things that wounded her, be her human shield.

  He didn’t understand her relationship with her father, but he’d do what he could to protect her.

  She took another deep breath, and her porcelain face smoothed. He couldn’t help being amazed at how beautiful she was.

  They entered the house through the door from the garage. “Let’s put Tom’s description of the man up on the board,” Monica said. They’d created a master board on the wall of her bedroom, which was so large it had a small sitting area on one side. They’d been putting self-adhesive notes on one wall with all the information they’d collected about the stalker.

  As they headed up the stairs, Evita came out from the kitchen. “Monica, there’s a call for you on the house phone.”

  Shaun didn’t think anything of it, but Monica suddenly tensed. “From whom?” she asked.

  “He said something about a bank, but he was speaking so quickly I wasn’t sure.”

  “Probably a telemarketer,” Shaun said.

  But Monica’s teeth worried her bottom lip for a moment. Finally she said, “I’ll take the call in the library.”