Stalker in the Shadows (Love Inspired Suspense)

by Camy Tang

  She didn’t know what to say in response to that. But what she did know was that the clinic wasn’t worth the risk to her family.

  How had it become so important to her in the first place?

  Aunt Becca got to her feet with a soft oomph. “My knees just aren’t the same these days.” She laid a hand on Monica’s shoulder. “Why don’t you pray about it?” And then she left the library, closing the door behind her.

  Monica remained on the floor, feeling dazed, drained and yet relieved at the same time. She finally understood what had been at the root of all she’d been feeling, and understanding it made it better, somehow.

  She closed her eyes, folded her hands, and bowed her head.

  Lord, what do You want me to do?

  THIRTEEN

  “Dad.” Monica entered her father’s bedroom.

  He looked up from where he sat in the recliner in front of the fireplace. His Bible was open in his lap. His eyes seemed tired as they looked at her. “Come in. Sit down.”

  She sat in the chair opposite his, her heart beating slow and steady. She was surprised at how calm she felt. “Dad, I’m sorry for worrying you.”

  He didn’t look at her, but he didn’t seem upset. Maybe embarrassed.

  “I’m stopping the free clinic project.”

  Now he did look at her. “Are you sure? What brought this about?”

  “I got a note threatening my family. You all are more important than a clinic.”

  Much more important than her need to feel significant. She also had to trust that God would protect her family against this madman.

  “So…” He fingered the edges of his Bible. “What are you going to do when I don’t need you anymore? Go back to the hospital in San Francisco?”

  “I’ll stay and work as resident nurse at the spa.” The words came out easier than she had expected them to.

  She had thought her father would be rejoicing, but he looked at her in confusion. “I don’t understand.”

  “I was praying, and I felt God wants me to put my family first.”

  “And so…just like that? You set aside your plans for the clinic?”

  “Willingly.” Without bitterness or anger or reluctance. Instead, she felt peace knowing God was pleased that she was obeying His purpose for her, even though it wasn’t what she had imagined for herself.

  “What about what you were saying about the need in Sonoma?” he asked.

  “There’s still a need, but I feel like God doesn’t want me to fill it right now with my clinic. He wants me at the spa.”

  “I…I’m glad.” But his voice seemed more shocked than happy.

  “I knew you would be. That’s why I came to tell you.” She rose and kissed his cheek. “I’ll see you this afternoon for your appointment, Dad.”

  She went to the breakfast room where Naomi and Aunt Becca were lingering over coffee. “Where’s Rachel?” she asked.

  “She left for the spa already,” Naomi said.

  Monica stilled. She hadn’t had time to think about if it might be dangerous for her sisters to be traveling alone right now. In fact, Aunt Becca got the envelope yesterday in the mail, which meant the stalker sent the threat to her family the day before. Which meant it was the next day that he killed Phillip Bromley.

  Aunt Becca caught her eye. “I didn’t even think if it would be safe for her.”

  “What do you mean, safe?” Naomi asked.

  “The stalker sent photos of you guys and threatened to hurt you,” Monica said. “I’ve…” She sighed. “I’ve decided to stop work on the clinic.”

  “Oh, Monica.” Naomi reached out to grab her hand. “I know how much it means to you.”

  “I’m okay with it, really. I think it’s what God wants me to do.”

  “In the meantime, we should probably be a bit more cautious,” Aunt Becca said. “I can call Detective Carter—”

  “No, I’ll call Shaun. He can drive you all to the spa this morning.”

  “I was going to ask you if you could come to the spa to help out this morning,” Naomi said. “I have three interviews set up with potential spa managers to take over when I get married, so Aunt Becca and I will be busy with those. Do you mind watching over things?”

  “Not at all.” She’d have to get used to the way the spa was run, anyway, if she was going to work there. She dialed Shaun’s number.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “The stalker sent photos of my family to the spa yesterday, with a note that said he’d hurt them if I didn’t stop.”

  “He sent them to the spa? Not your house?”

  “He addressed the envelope to me in care of Aunt Becca. I think he did it to rattle me, to let me know he could get to her. Or maybe he wanted Aunt Becca to open it.” Monica was glad her aunt hadn’t thought twice about the envelope or been tempted to open it. “So in light of all that, I’ve decided to cancel the clinic project. I’m also going to do what Dad wants and work as resident nurse at the spa.”

  He was silent a long moment. “Are you sure about this?”

  “I feel it’s what God wants me to do.”

  “You know I supported you in your free children’s clinic, right?”

  “I know.”

  “But I think it’s good for you to do this to protect your family. And I think it’s a good idea for you to work for your dad. You’re putting your family first and it’ll lead to stronger family ties that will make up for any disappointment of not fulfilling your dream for the clinic.”

  His affirmation was a buoy in open waters, and she clung to it. “Thanks.”

  “I know you don’t get along well with your dad, but maybe this will help you improve things.”

  “Yeah, it probably will.” And she realized she wanted the kind of relationship with her father that Shaun had with his.

  “So what’s next?” he asked.

  She was surprised he wasn’t more disappointed in losing the chance of finding his sister’s killer by drawing him out. It was unlike Shaun, but then she remembered how changed he’d been earlier this morning when they went to visit Jorge and wondered again what had happened. “I have to call my investors later today to tell them I’m canceling the project, and hopefully the stalker will find out.”

  And leave her alone.

  And stalk some other woman.

  No, she couldn’t think like that. She had to trust God. She knew this was what He wanted her to do.

  “In the meantime, I want to protect my family. Can you pick us up and take us to the spa? I’m going there to help Naomi today.”

  “Sure.”

  “You don’t need to stick around. The spa has outside video surveillance and security guards.”

  “Of course I’ll stick around,” Shaun said.

  He picked them up a little while later, but as they turned out of the driveway, Monica felt a shiver walk across her shoulder blades. Was the stalker watching them or was she being paranoid?

  When they arrived at the spa, Shaun drove to the back and parked. They entered through the back door, but Monica held Shaun’s arm and let Naomi and Aunt Becca continue down the hallway toward their offices.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  There was a brief flash on his face, a rush of raw emotion that she hadn’t seen in him before. And she could see that it frightened him.

  The next moment, he’d closed himself up and said, “I’m fine.”

  She had the feeling he was pushing her away because he was dealing with something so sore and sensitive, he didn’t know how to share it with anyone. She didn’t think he was pushing her away because of anything she’d done, but it still hurt.

  He said, “The spa is close to the garage. I’m going to see if my Suburban is ready yet. I’ll be back in a few minutes. You’ll be okay here, right?”

  “I can barricade myself in the security guards’ room if you want.” She tried to be light-hearted about it, but it sounded harsh in her ears.

  “I’ll be back.”
He left through the back door.

  Monica went looking for her aunt and found her in the front foyer of the spa. There were already several patrons waiting to be served at the receptionist’s desk.

  “Monica, can you help Jenny and Iona?” Aunt Becca said, referring to the two receptionists. “I have to get ready for my first interview.”

  “Sure.”

  Aunt Becca disappeared through the double doors leading into the main area of the spa, and Monica approached a woman standing next in line. “How can I help you?”

  The woman needed to check in for her appointment, so Monica did that for her and then stood chatting with her until Haley entered the foyer. “Mrs. Higley, this is Haley, and she’ll take you in back for your facial.”

  Her cell phone rang. “Hi, Dad.”

  “Monica, an envelope came for you this morning in the mail.”

  “Don’t open it, Dad, at least not without gloves. We’ll give it to Detective Carter later.”

  “Are you sure? It’s rather large.”

  “How large?” she asked.

  “Well, let me see…”

  Then the front door to the spa opened. Monica looked up and saw a man with tanned skin approaching her.

  It was as if it were happening in slow motion. As he walked toward her it was as if he took a minute for each step he took. At first she didn’t realize who she was looking at because his face was much thinner than it had been in the L.A. photos. Also, his hair was shorter and more brown than blond, a very expensive highlighting job, and he had on a suit and tie rather than the casual open-necked shirts he wore in the pictures.

  Then it dawned on her that this was Clare’s stalker. This was her stalker.

  And in another split second, she realized that this was Rodney Lassiter.

  He was even more tanned than when she’d done the video chat with him, and in the chat, he’d been wearing sunglasses. Now that he didn’t have those glasses on, she saw that his small eyes were set close to his long nose, and like in the photos from five years ago, he again had no sunglass tan line across his eyes. His narrow face made his nose look larger than it was.

  If he dressed in a T-shirt, jeans, and workboots, he’d look like a local field worker. In downtown Sonoma, or just hanging around the countryside, he’d blend in perfectly.

  Here, at the spa, he again blended in with his expensive suit, his diamond-crusted watch, his Italian leather shoes. No one gave him a second glance except for Monica.

  She whipped her head around and opened her mouth to tell someone to call the police, but Rodney was suddenly there, pressed up against her side, his cigarette smoke choking her. He grabbed her cell phone away from her.

  And a sharp object stuck hard into her side.

  At first she thought it was a knife. Could she fight him off with some of the jiujitsu moves Shaun had taught her? Her hands shook. She tried to remember the moves, but her mind whirled with nothing but random images.

  Then he moved closer to her, his other hand grabbing her arm, pressing the object deeper under her ribcage as he whispered in her ear, “Say anything and I’ll shoot you.”

  A gun.

  “You’re going to come with me right now,” he said.

  Iona had finished speaking with the patron she’d been dealing with and noticed Rodney standing beside Monica. “Hello, sir, how can I help you?”

  “I just need to speak to Monica for a moment,” he answered in a smooth, calm voice, but the gun jabbed at her.

  He was going to take her, and he would kill her. Maybe he’d make it look like suicide, or maybe he’d just kill her outright like he did with Phillip. Either way, he’d get what he wanted—she’d be dead, and his identity would die with her.

  She couldn’t let that happen. She couldn’t let him go free to hurt more people.

  He was threatening to kill her now, but he’d definitely kill her if he took her. If she said something now, he’d shoot her but they would at least know the stalker was Rodney Lassiter, not some nameless migrant worker.

  She began hyperventilating. Calm down. You have to do this.

  At that moment, Aunt Becca entered the foyer again, looking down at some papers in her hands.

  “Monica, I need your opinion…” Aunt Becca looked up from her papers and saw Rodney. Saw Monica’s face. Knew something was wrong.

  Rodney raised his gun and shot her aunt.

  The sound cracked in her ear and echoed fiercely through the high-ceilinged foyer, reverberating through the marble floors. Iona and Jenny and the few patrons in the room screamed and ducked.

  Aunt Becca went down.

  “No!”

  Monica jerked forward to go to her aunt, but Rodney’s grip on her arm was too strong. Suddenly she was being pulled backward, out of the spa, through the front doors. She tried to resist, but her limbs felt numb.

  “Stay back!” Rodney ordered the valets out front, pointing the gun at them.

  He’d left his car near the door. “Get in the driver’s seat,” he said. “And don’t put on your seatbelt.” At first she was confused, but then she realized that if she tried anything while driving, she wouldn’t have as much control over the car without her seatbelt on.

  She obeyed, and he got into the backseat.

  “Drive.”

  Shaun sent up a fervent prayer thanking God that the stalker was a terrible shot.

  He hovered over the paramedics as they took care of Becca, and he could see that the bullet had gone through her right shoulder. Her face was drawn and pale, but she looked alert and otherwise okay.

  “Will she be okay?” Detective Carter asked the paramedics.

  “She’ll be fine, sir,” one of them said.

  After the stalker left with Monica, the receptionists had called the police and an ambulance. It was Detective Carter who had called Shaun, and he’d arrived at the spa only a few minutes after they did.

  Shaun looked at the detective’s tight jaw and creased brow and knew it was killing him to not be able to go to the hospital with Becca. But after going out to the ambulance with her, Detective Carter returned to the spa to talk to the other officers who had arrived with him, who had been talking to the witnesses.

  The detective’s cell phone rang. He looked at the caller ID, then ignored the call and continued to talk to the officers. Then he got a beep from a text message. Looking at it, he frowned, then made a phone call. “Edward.”

  Shaun headed closer to him at the sound of the name.

  The detective’s brows knit together as he listened to Edward. “Yes, he’s…Jorge?…”

  “Jorge?” Shaun said.

  “Thank you, Edward.” Detective Carter hung up and turned to Shaun. “Edward said he didn’t have your phone number or he would have called you himself. Jorge called him—he remembered the name of the man in Phillip’s photos. Emmanuel.”

  Emmanuel. Lots of Hispanic men had that name, it wasn’t unusual or uncommon. But at least they had a name.

  If it was even his real name.

  Detective Carter approached the two receptionists for the spa, and Shaun followed close behind him. The detective didn’t object.

  “Iona, you told my officer about the man who took Monica. Had you seen him before?”

  She shook her head. “He’s never come to the spa before. He was about medium height—only a little taller than me, with brown hair with blond highlights. Really dark tan.”

  This wasn’t helping. They were only describing a man he’d already seen in those photos.

  “Any unusual facial features?” the detective asked.

  “Um…”

  Iona bit her lip as she thought, and then the other receptionist said, “He had small eyes.”

  Detective Carter nodded and noted it down in his notebook.

  This was all too slow. Monica was heading farther and farther away with each minute. The detective had called for roadblocks in and out of Sonoma, but the stalker might have already passed them by the time the roadbl
ocks were set up. Shaun tried to relax, but his legs twitched with nervous energy.

  “His nose was kind of big,” Iona said.

  “What was he wearing?”

  “Dark business suit. Expensive shoes…” Iona grimaced, trying to remember.

  Then the other receptionist added, “He had a really expensive watch. It was full of diamonds.”

  Diamonds. He’d seen a watch with diamonds.

  “Can I use your computer?” Shaun asked. He scooted behind the receptionist’s desk and pulled up an internet browser. Then he did an image search for Rodney Lassiter.

  He’d had sunglasses on when Shaun had last seen him, so he hadn’t seen his eyes. And now that he thought about it, Shaun realized Lassiter could have flown to Florida just before the video chat with Monica, pretending he’d been there the entire time. It would have been easy to pay someone to make his Miami hotel room look like it was slept in.

  A publicity photo of Rodney Lassiter came up.

  It was the man in Phillip’s photos.

  Rodney now had darker hair and he’d lost weight, so it took Shaun a moment to recognize him. He imagined Phillip feeling the same jolt of surprise as he realized he was face-to-face with Clare’s stalker. Clare’s killer.

  Shaun wouldn’t let him kill Monica, not if he could help it.

  “Who is that?” Detective Carter demanded.

  “Rodney Lassiter,” Shaun said. “One of Monica’s investors. He’s Emmanuel.”

  The detective got on the phone immediately, but Shaun only heard his tense voice, not the words. He stared at Lassiter’s picture, the small dead eyes, the calm mouth.

  “You’ll never catch me.”

  “Yes, I will,” Shaun said through gritted teeth.

  Except he knew they had nothing. They didn’t know where Lassiter was staying in Sonoma. They didn’t know where he’d taken Monica. All they had was his name.

  Yesterday he would have popped off like a rocket, urgent to do something. He felt the emotions roiling under his skin, but there was something invisible wrapped around him, holding him steady, keeping the frustration in check.

  He bowed his head, leaning against the desk. Oh, God.