Stalker in the Shadows (Love Inspired Suspense)

by Camy Tang

  That night, after dropping Monica off at her home, Shaun was so exhausted that when the automatic garage door lifted only twelve inches before grinding to a halt, he didn’t even notice that the outdoor floodlights hadn’t turned on until he’d already climbed out of the truck.

  He paused, standing next to the SUV’s open door, squinting at the dark floodlights that should have illuminated the entire front driveway of his father’s home. The only light was from his headlights, which reflected off the mostly closed garage door, and the lights from the inside of the garage, which shone under the bottom edge.

  And then out of the corner of his eye, he saw a shadow move.

  Remembering the shovel outside of Monica’s home, he ducked.

  Clang! Something metallic hit the frame of his truck above his head. He didn’t stop to look—he tackled the dark figure, and they flew through the air before landing hard on the gravel driveway.

  Bits of gravel rained against his face, both from the impact and because the figure quickly scrambled to get away from him. Blows rained sharply on Shaun’s head and shoulders, and he struggled to pin the man down.

  The two men twisted wildly, Shaun trying to wrestle the man into a jiujitsu submission. He pulled the man’s head down to do a guillotine choke, but the attacker began punching at Shaun’s ribs near the place where a bullet had grazed him last year. The pain made stars flash in front of his eyes, and he loosened his hold.

  The attacker began to slither away from him, but Shaun used his legs around the stalker’s waist to hold him fast while he also clenched hard on the man’s head, grabbing fistfuls of hair. The man’s harsh, fast breathing sounded loud in the still night air.

  The attacker was tiring.

  Then with one swift move, the man yanked himself away. Shaun pulled a hank of hair loose as the man shot backward. He flipped in midair to land on his hands and knees, and then took off into the darkness.

  Shaun started to jump to his feet, but a sudden sharp pain in his side made him stumble. His old injury. He grit his teeth and pelted after the man, but each step felt like a knife stabbed him in the ribs.

  He was still yards away when he saw headlights blaze to life, and then a car take off down the road from his house. Shaun hadn’t even seen the car when he’d pulled into his driveway. His father’s home was like the Grants’ house, widely spaced between neighbors on ten acres of land with lots of bushes and trees for a car to hide behind.

  His lungs burned, and his side was on fire. Muscles he hadn’t used in months ached all through his arms and legs. But as he glanced down at his hands, he realized he wasn’t completely empty-handed.

  He still had the hair he’d pulled from the attacker’s head.

  Monica’s nerves were walking on a knife blade. The stalker hadn’t done anything in over a week.

  Something terrible was due at any time, and soon.

  She parked in the O’Neills’ driveway, and after getting the first-aid kit out of her car, she headed toward the front door, but before she could ring, Shaun opened it for her.

  “Come on in.” He stepped aside for her. “I don’t want you outside and exposed for too long.”

  Still watching out for her, even though his old torso injury had kept him in bed for several days after the attack. “How’s your side feeling?”

  “Better every day.”

  “Let me look at it.”

  He led her into the living room, where every flat surface had accumulated old sports pages from the newspaper, empty and half-empty drinking cups and mugs, and plates covered with crumbs. “Sorry for the mess. Dad still hasn’t hired a housekeeper yet, even though he opened the house up again a month ago.”

  In fact, a couple of chairs still had Holland covers thrown over them, while others had only had the covers folded aside but still half-hanging off the backs. When she’d visited him other times this past week, she’d only seen his bedroom since he’d been unable to move without pain. His room was immaculate, but she hadn’t realized until now that the rest of the house was still in a state of disarray.

  She rested the first-aid kit on top of a stack of newspapers on the coffee table while Shaun gingerly sat down on the couch.

  “Any letters or photos from our friend?” Shaun pulled up one side of his shirt to expose his wound.

  “Nothing.” Monica gently removed the tape adhering the sterile gauze square to his side.

  “It makes me wonder what he’s up to.”

  “Me, too.” The attacker’s blows had reopened the wound a little, but by now the flesh was starting to heal. “I also don’t know why he’s not claiming responsibility for the attack on you.”

  “I was thinking about it last night,” Shaun said. “I think he attacked me because I stopped the poisoning at the party. He might have been angry at me, or he might have wanted to get me out of the way to leave you more vulnerable.”

  Monica paused as she soaked a cotton ball with antiseptic solution. She had come to depend on Shaun being there for her. What would she do if he’d been more seriously hurt?

  She didn’t want to think about it. “Rachel called me this morning to say that she got the lab results back.”

  Monica’s dermatologist sister Rachel had explained that since the Sonoma PD was so small, they used a freelance laboratory to do their forensic work, and their workload was typically large. To get results faster, Rachel had sent the hair Shaun had grabbed as well as the poisoned mousses to a different freelance laboratory she often used for chemical analysis of her skin care products.

  “And?” Shaun winced as Monica dabbed antiseptic on his wound.

  “You were right. The mousses were poisoned with arsenic.” The news had sent a shock through her when Rachel had told her.

  Shaun, too, stilled. “It’s the kind of thing you don’t really want to hear.”

  “But Rachel also said that it hadn’t been a lethal concentration. People would have gotten sick, but they wouldn’t necessarily have died. He might have made a mistake in the amount of arsenic.” She tore open a package of sterile gauze.

  “What about the hair?”

  “It’s actually blond, dyed brown.”

  He stared at the dark television on the far wall of the living room as he thought. “Phillip’s hair used to be blond when he was a teenager. It might have gotten darker with age, or he might dye it.”

  Monica attached the gauze over his wound with medical tape. “I’m not sure that most men—who don’t have gray hair—will bother to dye their hair a normal color. Funky colors, sometimes. But to dye it brown? Why?”

  “To disguise himself.” Then he reluctantly conceded, “Which wouldn’t make sense in Phillip’s case.”

  “Rachel also had the lab analyze the DNA, and the lab’s checking the various databases, but nothing yet. It could be that the attacker’s DNA isn’t in the system. There, I’m done.” She smoothed the last piece of tape against his skin, and felt his muscles move beneath her fingers.

  While dressing his wound, she’d been able to go into nursing mode and simply focus on the task, not the man. But now she became uncomfortably aware of his scent, and his nearness, and the silkiness of his skin under her hand.

  She forced her hands into her lap.

  Shaun dropped his shirt down over the bandage again. “I got a call from Nathan a few minutes before you got here. He heard back from his friends in the LAPD.”

  “Did they look into Clare’s death again?”

  “Not exactly. At the time, they hadn’t had the information about the stalker targeting women working for free clinics, but Nathan had them search the database for other suicides. He found two of them in the years since Clare’s death.”

  She leaned forward. “Two? Who were they?”

  “One was a girl who worked for another free family planning clinic. The other worked for a free urgent care facility. But their deaths were different from Clare’s.”

  “Not drug overdoses?”

  “No. One hung
herself, the other took sleeping pills and alcohol.”

  Those poor women. Monica looked down at her hands. “So, no other connection to Clare’s death?”

  “Actually, because the deaths had been suicides, the police hadn’t investigated further. But when they found the free clinic association, they looked to see if the girls had filed incident reports about a stalker. And both of them had.”

  “What?” Monica’s spine stiffened.

  “Both women had lived alone. It could be that they hadn’t told many of their friends or family members about the stalker, so no one connected the stalker with their suicides. Or maybe they just didn’t question it aggressively when the police ruled their deaths suicides.”

  She took a few deep breaths to calm herself. “So this guy could have been continuing to stalk women in L.A. for all these years. And then killing them if they didn’t stop work on their free clinics, but making them look like suicides.”

  “It’s not just coincidence anymore,” Shaun said. “It’s a pattern.”

  She rose to her feet and walked to the large bay window, looking out into the trees in front of the house. “I thought that if I ever had confirmation that this stalker and Clare’s stalker were the same—if I had proof as opposed to just coincidence, that I’d feel better. But I don’t feel better. I just feel more afraid.”

  Shaun got up and stood behind her, putting his hand on her shoulder. “Don’t be afraid. I’m here for you.”

  She touched his hand briefly, savoring this moment being close to him, then made herself move away. “I suppose…I guess this means we have more information about him, so we’re more likely to find him, right?” She tried to force herself to be determined, to be positive. Otherwise, she would be tempted to give in to the fear.

  She supposed that meant they had more information on him, so they were more likely to find him. She tried to force herself to be determined, to be positive. Otherwise, she would be tempted to give in to the fear.

  She also had news Shaun wasn’t going to like. “I got a call from Phillip Bromley today.”

  His mouth tightened.

  “He wants to meet me for lunch tomorrow at a café near his bank in San Francisco. He has a friend who may be interested in investing in the clinic.”

  Shaun gave her an incredulous look. “Does this friend know about everything that happened?”

  “Phillip said he told him everything, and he’s still interested.”

  Shaun shook his head violently and began pacing in front of the large flat-screen television. “No, this is too suspicious. It’s a trap.”

  “In a café in broad daylight? At lunch hour in San Francisco?”

  “After what happened at the party, I’m not letting you near that murderer,” he spat out.

  His ferocity made her flinch. “Shaun…”

  “He’s trying to get you alone so he can do something worse—”

  “I told Phillip that if I decided to meet him, I’d be bringing you.”

  Shaun paused his pacing, but then resumed it with renewed anger. “Maybe he’s being cocky.”

  “You promised me—”

  “I know he’s the stalker,” Shaun said with a raised voice.

  She paused before saying, “Shaun, this is…this is starting to be vindictive.”

  He gave her a look she couldn’t interpret, then turned to stare out the window. She watched him carefully and saw his stiff shoulders relax bit by bit.

  Finally he turned back to her. “He knows I’ll be with you?”

  “In fact, he seemed fine with that.”

  “In broad daylight. In a busy restaurant.”

  “So do I have my bodyguard’s permission to have lunch with Phillip tomorrow?”

  He gave a curt nod.

  At that moment, her cell phone rang. The caller ID showed it was Carol Uzaki, the founder of Zoe International and the hostess of the “thank you” dinner for Zoe’s sponsors a few weeks ago. “Hi, Carol.”

  Carol answered with her usual good cheer and enthusiastic friendliness. “Hi, Monica, how are you doing? It was so good to see you at the Zoe banquet. I’m so sorry your dad couldn’t come, but it was wonderful to catch up with you and your sisters.”

  “Thanks, Carol. I wish we’d had more time to chat.”

  “Me, too! We’re heading back to Thailand tomorrow. Anyway, I emailed you that guest list you wanted. I hope it helps you. I’ll be praying for you.”

  Monica didn’t know how to respond. She hadn’t told Carol about the stalker. “Thanks, Carol.”

  “And remember that Jesus is always in control, whether things are going good, or bad, or great, or downhill. Oh, Monica.” And Monica could hear the smile in Carol’s voice. “You are so precious to Jesus. You matter so deeply to Him. Don’t ever forget that, okay?”

  The words made tears sting her eyes. She turned away so Shaun couldn’t see. “Okay.”

  “I’ve got to go. So much to do before we go back. Bye!”

  She stood there a moment, the phone to her ear, her brain and her heart trying to understand the strange and strangely wonderful things Carol had said to her. They had moved her in a way she hadn’t felt before, which she couldn’t quite explain.

  She’d think about all this later, when the stress of the moment wasn’t overwhelming her.

  She turned to Shaun. “Carol emailed me the guest list. Did you want to take a quick look before we go talk to Phillip?”

  He searched her face for a moment, his eyes worried, but then he nodded and led the way to his father’s office across the hallway. She hopped on to the internet and logged into her email account, then opened Carol’s message and the attachment.

  The guest list was actually an extensive spreadsheet that gave information about each guest. Carol had erased guests’ addresses and phone numbers, but all the other information was there, including table assignments, number of people in their party, and then a column on the far right that indicated whether the ticket had been given to the guest or if they had bought the ticket.

  “What’s that column for?” Shaun asked, puzzled. “I thought all the guests at the Zoe banquet were donors to Zoe International, and that’s why they were given tickets. I didn’t realize people could buy tickets.”

  “It’s for if the guest wants to bring other people,” Monica said. “Dad donates to Zoe, so he gets two tickets—one for him and one for Aunt Becca. Naomi, Rachel and I also donate to Zoe, but nowhere near as much money as Dad, so we aren’t automatically given tickets. This year, he didn’t go, so Aunt Becca and I went on the two free tickets, and we bought tickets for Naomi and Rachel.”

  She scrolled through the list, looking for names of people she’d talked to. One of the first she saw was Phillip’s name, and then she realized something very strange.

  Monica pointed to the screen. “Look at this. He isn’t a donor to Zoe, he bought his ticket on his own.”

  “So?”

  She scrolled down quickly to look at everyone else who’d bought a ticket. There weren’t many, but they made it more obvious something was wrong. “These records indicate he was alone, he wasn’t with any other party of people already invited. Everyone else bought a ticket in order to be included with some other party, like my family did. He’s the only one who bought a ticket just to attend the banquet by himself.”

  Shaun frowned at the computer screen. “The only one? Out of, what, three hundred guests?”

  Monica stared at Phillip’s name on the spreadsheet. She really hadn’t thought he had anything underhanded in mind whenever she spoke to him, but this caused a tremble of unease in her chest.

  If Phillip wasn’t a donor to Zoe International, why in the world had he gone to the Zoe banquet?

  As soon as Shaun saw Phillip Bromley’s face, a surge of anger rolled in his gut.

  Shaun had been trying to be open-minded and not jump to conclusions, but he knew the man was hiding something. Eventually evidence would begin to point to Phillip as being respons
ible for his sister’s death, and for the threats against Monica.

  And Shaun wasn’t going to let him get away with it.

  As Phillip rose from a table at the café near his San Francisco bank, he darted a glance at Shaun, but then ignored him and greeted Monica with a smile. “Hi, Monica. This is Dr. Harold Uzaki. He’s a pediatrician.”

  She shook hands with the smiling Japanese man. “Pleased to meet you.” Monica sat at the table next to him. “This is my business associate, Shaun O’Neill,” she said as Shaun pulled out a chair and lowered himself down.

  “Thank you for making the time to meet with us,” Dr. Uzaki said.

  Phillip’s polite smile slipped as he glanced again at Shaun, but then he nodded. “Shaun. Good to see you.”

  Shaun couldn’t say the same, and he couldn’t stop glaring at the man.

  Phillip swallowed.

  Monica noticed Shaun’s black expression and shot him a look that was part concern and part command: What’s wrong? Calm down. She turned to Harold Uzaki. “Are you related to Carol Uzaki from Zoe International?”

  Harold’s smile grew brighter. “Her husband is my cousin. In fact, my wife and I are both doctors and often visit their orphanage in Thailand to do free health check-ups on the children. That is why we’re interested in your clinic, despite the attacks on it. We believe strongly in free medical care for children, no matter where they live.”

  As Harold and Monica chatted, Shaun tried to relax, but the politeness of the conversation grated on him. He wanted to grab Phillip by the collar and demand he tell them if he had killed Clare. That was a little harder to do with drinks and food on the table between them. It upset him that it was almost as if she were protecting Phillip when he could be the stalker.

  Shaun was almost finished with the ham sandwich he’d ordered when a buzzing in his pocket made him look at his cell phone. It was Nathan.

  He considered ignoring it, but the lunch situation seemed safe enough, so he excused himself, saying, “I’m sorry, I need to take this.” He answered the phone as he walked a few paces away, keeping the table within his field of view and also within easy reach, but out of earshot if he kept his voice low. “Hey, Nathan.”