Stalker in the Shadows (Love Inspired Suspense)

by Camy Tang

  He drew in a deep breath.

  God, I couldn’t protect my sister or those people in the van. I couldn’t do it. Now Monica’s gone, and it’s the same thing—I can’t do it.

  But I know I don’t have to.

  Please. Please protect her. Please help us find her.

  He remembered the last time he’d seen her, the bleakness in her face as he backed away. He hadn’t been able to reach out to her, not with his pain still so raw inside him. He’d always thought he’d have time later to talk to her, to mend things between them. Now he realized he’d fallen in love with her.

  God, I’m willing to risk my heart to her, if You can just save her.

  He needed to do the hardest thing he’d ever done in his life, and trust God.

  Detective Carter called Lassiter’s Miami hotel and had the security team search his room. They found nothing to point to a place he might have taken Monica, just clothes strewn around the room.

  The minutes ticked by, and Shaun paced back and forth through the foyer of the spa, trying to think of anything he could do that might help them find her, and sending up prayers to God to keep her safe.

  Then his cell phone rang, an unknown San Francisco number. For a wild moment, he was certain it was Rodney calling to gloat. “Hello?”

  “It’s, er…John Butler,” said a gruff voice.

  The private investigator Rodney had hired.

  “I…I changed my mind.”

  “We know your client’s real name now,” Shaun told him.

  “I know where he’s staying,” Butler said.

  “What?” Shaun’s heart slammed hard in his chest.

  “He wasn’t prompt with his last payment, so I managed to find out where he was staying. I ran him to ground and got my money.”

  “Where?” Shaun demanded.

  “The Fontana Hotel in Marin.”

  Rodney had Monica drive out of Sonoma fast, but then he took her on a circuitous route that finally ended up in Marin, just north of San Francisco. She had tried to tell him she needed to use the bathroom, but he called her bluff and told her to hold it or go where she sat.

  Then they drove up into the Fontana Hotel driveway. “Pull the car up to the valet,” he said.

  “The hotel has cameras,” she said. “They’ll find you.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I won’t be here long, thanks to you. You couldn’t just come quietly.”

  She’d blown his cover. Otherwise, he could have slipped away and no one would have known the stalker was Rodney Lassiter, VP of a luxury foods distribution company.

  “If you run, if you do anything, I won’t shoot you. I’ll shoot someone else,” he said in a nasty voice. “Now walk into the hotel.” He slipped his hand and the gun into his suit jacket pocket.

  She hesitated. They were a few feet from the front doors, and a valet was already approaching the car, handing her a claim ticket.

  Rodney came close to her, his cigarette scent filling her nostrils. “Do anything, and this guy is the first to die. Then I’ll take out his coworkers.”

  She walked into the hotel.

  “What do you have against free clinics?” she asked as they waited for the elevator.

  “Shut up,” he said.

  “Did you kill Clare?”

  His mouth tightened. “You two would have been friends. You’re exactly alike.”

  “Stubborn?”

  “Too selfish to do anything for the greater good.”

  “Stopping a free children’s clinic in Sonoma is for the greater good?”

  “Free clinics are open graves,” he replied curtly. The elevator doors opened. “Get in.”

  As they rose to the top floor, he fingered his belt. Would he kill her the same way he killed Phillip, with his belt? Why not just kill her in her car?

  Maybe because he needed to hide her body, to give him time to get away before she was found. Maybe he needed something in his hotel room.

  She then remembered something he’d said during the video chat. She now knew his story about Phillip trying to run him down in Miami was false, but he’d said he had noticed her talking to Phillip at the Zoe banquet, which indicated he already knew Phillip before the banquet. So why hadn’t Phillip recognized him in the photos? “Was Phillip your friend?”

  He snorted. “He was convenient.”

  “Convenient?”

  “How often do you find a man who’s friends with the girl you’re going to kill, who looks exactly like you?”

  So he’d chosen Phillip because he was Clare’s friend. “You bought a duster on purpose. You wanted to pin it on Phillip on purpose.”

  He didn’t answer her. She didn’t need an answer. Clare had probably just let him into her townhouse, thinking he was Phillip.

  “You can’t pin my death on Phillip,” she said.

  “I was going to take your boyfriend, too, and pin it on him, but he wasn’t with you when I walked into the spa. Bad luck, I guess.”

  Shaun. She’d never see Shaun again.

  “I should thank Phillip,” Rodney said. “If I hadn’t seen him talking to you at the Zoe banquet, I would never have chatted with you.” The elevator doors opened. “We’re in the Grand Suite, darling.”

  As they walked down the hallway, the door to the Honeymoon Suite opened and a couple exited.

  “Hi,” Rodney said with a smile and a glance at Monica. She read his look clearly—Do anything and they die.

  The couple walked past them and stood waiting for the elevator.

  He let her into his suite, which had a wide open receiving area with a sofa and chairs in a semicircle. Against the left wall was a fully stocked bar next to a closed door. He nodded at the sofa. “Sit.”

  There was space behind the sofa. He’d stand there and loop his belt over her head like he’d done with Phillip.

  No. She wouldn’t go down without a fight. She tried to breathe through her tight throat.

  She dipped her head a little, trying to fake terror. How ironic. She was afraid—very afraid—but she had to make him think she was too afraid to think clearly, to do anything.

  She sat.

  She heard him behind her, moving slowly, maybe trying to move quietly so she wouldn’t know exactly what he was doing. But she’d already seen him fingering his belt. He could control his facial expressions, but he couldn’t control the rest of his body.

  She was ready when she saw the blur of the belt loop in front of her eyes. She quickly raised her hand up to her face so that he caught her wrist, too, when he pulled the belt around her throat. The leather dug into her wrist bone painfully, shoving her hand into her cheek, but her hand kept the belt from closing off her trachea. She rose up on her feet as he hauled her backwards, and after bracing one foot, she shot her free elbow back toward his head.

  It collided solidly with something. Maybe his nose.

  The belt loosened. She fumbled to pull it from around her neck.

  His arm reached forward. She looked down and saw his right hand about to grab at her waist, to pull her back toward him.

  And then memory flashed. Shaun’s hand reaching just like this, to grab her from behind.

  She reached across her body to grab his wrist with her left hand. She slipped her right forearm under his to grab at her left arm, trapping his arm against her body. Before he could react to what she was doing, she hauled upward with her right forearm and pushed down with her left hand, squeezing her arms together.

  His radius bone snapped.

  Rodney howled and jerked his arm out of her hold.

  She dove over the back of the sofa and propelled herself toward the door. Then she heard the sound of a gunshot and felt a red-hot poker stab into the back of her right thigh. She fell. She’d been shot. Her entire leg was on fire.

  The door to the suite burst open. “Police!”

  But suddenly Rodney grabbed her arm, hauled her backward. The jostling sent waves of pain up her leg, making her nauseous. He dragged her behind the b
ar.

  “Come any closer and I’ll shoot her!”

  She suddenly felt the hard, warm steel of the gun tip pressing into her temple, and wondered if this was the day she was going to die.

  Shaun rode with Detective Carter in his car. They squealed into the driveway of the Fontana and Shaun was out the door before they’d come to a halt.

  He sprinted to the front desk, where the manager immediately recognized him. His welcoming smile died as she saw the look on Shaun’s face.

  “Is there a Rodney Lassiter here?”

  The manager shoved the clerk aside and searched the computer himself. “No, I’m sorry, sir.”

  Of course he wouldn’t use his name. What name would he use?

  But then Shaun remembered something. The watch. The expensive sunglasses. Dropping the name of the Efken hotel in Miami. Staying in the Presidential Suite. Rodney liked flaunting his money, and he liked using it. He liked being in luxury.

  “Who has the Grand Suite and the Honeymoon Suite?” Shaun demanded.

  “Er… Honeymoon is Mr. and Mrs. Holt. Grand Suite is…Emmanuel Rodney.”

  Gotcha.

  “Give me your master key,” Shaun said, and the manager handed it over. He and the police headed to the elevators.

  As they rode to the top floor, Shaun saw the layout of the floor in his mind. There were only two suites, both with spacious layouts and balconies. Both rooms had two doors in and out—the main front door, and another door into a short foyer that led to the second bedroom in the suite.

  As they headed down the hallway toward the Grand Suite, the crack of a gunshot rang out.

  Shaun’s breath cracked in his lungs.

  Monica.

  He swiped the master key and stepped aside as the police burst through the door. He heard Rodney’s shout, “Come any closer and I’ll shoot her!”

  She was still alive.

  “It doesn’t have to end this way,” Detective Carter shouted into the room. “Come out from behind the bar with your hands above your head and no one will get hurt.”

  He was behind the bar. Right next to it was the master bedroom door. However, the second entrance door to the Grand Suite was on the other side of the suite.

  But the master bedroom had a balcony, and the master balcony for the Honeymoon Suite was close—Shaun could climb over. His brother Brady had stupidly done it during his bachelor party, which they’d held in the two suites on this floor. Shaun never thought he’d be grateful for Brady’s reckless streak.

  He raced to the Honeymoon Suite door and let himself in. Policemen followed him, and he motioned for them to be quiet.

  He entered the bedroom swiftly but cautiously in case the Holts were inside, but no one was there. He opened the sliding glass door, and the stiff breeze from the Bay slammed into him.

  “Sir.” One of the policemen stripped the bed and rushed to the bathroom to wet the sheet, which was 100% Egyptian cotton—even stronger when wet. They wrapped the end of the sheet around his waist tightly.

  Shaun slung his leg over the railing, balancing on the edge that thrust out. He was only six floors up in this wing of the hotel, but he didn’t look down.

  The distance between this balcony and the other one seemed a lot farther than he remembered.

  Just do it.

  He leaped toward the balcony railing, grabbing hold. One foot landed on the edge, the other slipped, but he fumbled and regained his foothold. He rolled over the edge of the railing, and he was safe. He untied the sheet at his waist and the policemen pulled the sheet back onto their balcony.

  He suddenly realized that once he opened the sliding glass door, Lassiter might hear him, but he looked through the glass and saw that the master bedroom door was closed. Lassiter wouldn’t hear anything.

  He pulled on the door and it opened. He slithered through and closed it behind him quickly. As he cleared the balcony, he saw one of the policemen with the sheet tied around his waist prepared to jump across also.

  He waited for the other man to enter the bedroom, then signaled for quiet. He slowly, painfully twisted the handle to the master bedroom door. It opened silently, any sounds masked by Detective Carter’s voice and Lassiter’s shouts into the main room of the suite.

  Lassiter was on the floor behind the bar, his back toward Shaun. His right arm hung limp, while his left held his gun awkwardly, only loosely pointed toward Monica’s figure crouched on the floor.

  Shaun took one breath. Then he darted forward.

  His left arm swept upward under Lassiter’s gun hand. A shot fired into the ceiling. Shaun hooked his right arm under Lassiter’s chin and grabbed his sleeve for leverage as he tightened a choke hold.

  The police descended, dog-piling on Lassiter and pulling him from Shaun’s hold. Shaun rolled away.

  Then he was scrambling toward Monica, tangling himself in her arms, burying his face in her hair.

  “I thought I lost you,” he said hoarsely.

  “I thought I’d never see you again,” she said.

  He squeezed, holding her tighter.

  She pulled back and looked up into his face. “You saved me. You were the protector you’re meant to be, and you saved me.”

  “I’ll always protect you.”

  “I love you,” she said.

  He kissed her, filling his senses with her, drinking her in as if she was sweet nectar. He pressed his cheek against hers and whispered, “I love you.”

  FOURTEEN

  The only thing good about a wheelchair, Monica decided, was that Shaun had to carry her up and down the stairs.

  He gently set her into the wheelchair that sat parked at the foot of the stairs. The party was already underway on the back porch of the Grant home.

  “I don’t see why Dad needs an announcement party,” Monica said. “We’ve all known for weeks he was going to hire your father as consultant for the Joy Luck Life hotel project.”

  “But the O’Neills like parties,” Shaun said as he wheeled her to the back door. “So we’re always making up excuses for one.”

  They entered the back porch, which was filled with Monica’s family. Rachel and Edward were talking to Detective Carter and Aunt Becca. Monica’s father sat in a chair, his walker nearby, chatting with Patrick O’Neill, while Shaun’s younger brother Brady and his wife showed off their new baby to Naomi and her fiancé Devon.

  Detective Carter saw them and gestured them over. “We discovered more about Rodney Lassiter from his father’s ex-housekeeper. She mentioned that Rodney had a twin sister who died from complications with pneumonia in a free clinic when he was about eight years old.”

  “A free clinic? But Rodney’s family is wealthy.”

  “Apparently they weren’t always. His father started his luxury foods distribution company when Rodney was in his late teens. The housekeeper mentioned that she’d overheard Rodney’s therapist talking to his parents.”

  Rodney’s therapist apparently hadn’t been able to help him with his grief.

  “According to the therapist, Rodney blamed his sister’s death on the fact they had to go to a free clinic to treat his sister, and in his mind, that’s why she died. He hated free clinics with an irrational obsession.”

  Was stalking ever rational?

  “Rodney was homeschooled and so he’d entered college a year early, but he took a year off after his sophomore year. That would put him in Sonoma and L.A. around the time Clare was stalked.”

  “Did you find any evidence about her death?” Monica asked.

  The detective shook his head. “No, but we discovered he met Clare here in Sonoma through a girl named Angela, who became Clare’s roommate in L.A. Angela had no idea Rodney was the one stalking Clare.”

  “So he took time off school and lived as a field worker in Sonoma so he could harass Clare?” Monica said.

  “It enabled him to blend in and not be noticed. And then he followed her down to L.A. He met you at the Zoe banquet because his parents donate to Zoe Internatio
nal.”

  “So him meeting Clare and meeting me were pure chance?”

  “Maybe. We don’t really know. He’s undergoing a psych evaluation.”

  “Monica, there you are.” Patrick came up to greet her. “I wish Liam and Michael could have come,” he said, referring to his other two sons. “This is a big day.”

  “It is?” Monica asked.

  Patrick winked at her. “This is the first official day of my retirement.”

  She laughed.

  Mr. Grant then tapped a spoon against his water glass and Evita circulated with drinks for them all. “I want to propose a toast,” he said. “To the forthcoming Joy Luck Life Spa and Hotel.”

  “Cheers!” rang around the porch.

  Monica was genuinely at peace with her decision to stay and work at her father’s spa as resident nurse, but a small chord of regret sounded deep in her chest. She would have liked to build the free children’s clinic—no longer out of a desire to make herself feel significant, but because she genuinely wanted to bring this service to Sonoma county.

  Maybe someday.

  Her father cleared his throat. “I also want to make an announcement.” He looked around at them, and his eyes found hers. “Monica, a percentage of all the profits from the hotel will be going directly into your free children’s clinic.”

  “My clinic? But…” She tried to clear the fuzziness in her shocked brain. “My clinic is canceled.”

  “I want you to continue with the project,” her father said.

  Was this really her father saying these things? After everything he’d said only a few weeks ago?

  He continued, “Do you remember that package that arrived at the house for you a week ago? When I called you about it?”

  When Rodney had walked into the spa. She had forgotten about the envelope.

  “I opened it and found it was your business plan,” he said.

  The copy of the plan she’d asked her hospital administrator friend to send to her.

  “I read it and was impressed. And shamed.” He rose slowly to his feet, using the walker to cross the porch to her. He reached out and took her hand. “I realize I’ve been selfish about wanting my own desires over your dreams. When you were taken, I realized I didn’t want to waste time arguing with you over what I want you to do with your life.”