“How did you manage that?”
He rubbed his wrist absently. She could still see the red marks the cuffs had left. “I was dating a woman when all this started. Apparently, the Creep thought she was Jessamyn. He followed her, left flowers for her, chocolates, all sorts of things. Mostly at her apartment. She didn’t tell me, and she really didn’t think much of it. She thought he was leaving stuff for another resident who was named Jess—in fact, she’d take them to that apartment.”
“How did you know that he was after your Jessamyn?”
“He approached her one afternoon, tried to take her to coffee. She wouldn’t hear of it, and she left him as fast as possible. That night, she told me about it.” Rick ran a hand through his hair. “Some of the things he did were right out of my books. Stuff that sounds romantic on paper isn’t always in person.”
“So you told her?”
He shook his head. “We called the cops, said we thought she had a stalker who was confusing her with someone else. They got a description of the guy, watched for him, but there wasn’t much they could do.”
“You don’t have his name?”
“I’ve never even seen him,” Rick said.
“Your girlfriend didn’t get a name?”
He shook his head. “About a year into it, she got this job offer that was going to take her to France. Her apartment lease was up three months before she had to leave. Rather than look for a new place, she put most of her stuff in storage and moved in with me.”
Tasha leaned forward, interested now.
“I guess he’d thought we’d been separated and then reconciled. I don’t know. But he pulled her aside one afternoon in the Loop, had a conversation with her that was right of one of the books—about how you know your soulmate when you see them, and sometimes you’re with the wrong person, so you have to make a choice. Anyway, it scared her. A lot. So we called the cops. They said there wasn’t much they could do unless we knew who this guy was. We didn’t.”
“There’s not much to do even if we know who the person is,” Tasha said. “The law only protects you so far.”
“I know that.” Rick’s tone was grim, and that sent a shiver through Tasha.
“What happened to your girlfriend?” she asked, not sure she wanted to know the answer.
“Oh, she went to France. We actually smuggled her out of the country. We—I, actually—bought her tickets on six different flights all leaving at the same time, and obviously, she missed all six of the flights.”
Tasha frowned.
He nodded. “Then she went to the ladies room, put on a wig and some different clothes, and bought a new ticket to New York for a flight leaving immediately. We watched at the gate to make sure he didn’t get on the flight. She didn’t see him. She flew to New York with no problems, then took her already booked international flight to France.”
“Did he follow her?”
“No. I don’t even think he knew she’d left. He never thought of her by her own name, you know. Only as Jessamyn Chance. Apparently he wasn’t following us that afternoon. So all that precaution was probably for nothing.”
“And he kept harassing you?”
Rick nodded. “He got it in his head that she was in my house, and I wasn’t letting her out. He started threatening me. The letters were nasty—although the ones to Jessamyn were filled with love.”
Tasha stared at Rick. What a fantastic story.
“I did report all of this to the cops,” he said. “They weren’t able to do anything. They said—”
“The best thing you can do is move.”
He glanced at her, then nodded. “I did. I came here. Then I started getting this creepy feeling that I was being watched. I kept telling myself that it was left over from before. I put in a security system, and thought I was safe.”
“But?”
“He left a basket for me last week, and he set off a couple of perimeter alarms.” Rick ran a hand through his hair. “Look, Tash, it got so bad in Chicago that I couldn’t work. I kept listening for the phone, watching for him. I thought when I moved here, I’d finally get some peace.”
“And you haven’t?”
Rick sighed. “I did until I realized he’d followed me. I don’t know, maybe he thinks I’m Bluebeard or something. I’m not, Tash.”
She didn’t care that he wasn’t calling her Detective Morgan any more. “What did he do when your girlfriend came back from France?”
“She never did,” Rick said.
“Because—”
“Because I stayed in touch. She knew that he hadn’t gone away. She wasn’t going to come back until she knew he’d been taken care of. And then...”
“Then?”
“She found someone else.” He sounded bitter.
“You loved her?”
“I don’t know. We didn’t have a chance, really. Not with all of this.” He raised his gaze to hers. “Now do you understand what I said on Saturday? Why things are complicated?”
She wasn’t going to let this be about them, not yet. “You attacked a man today. If Mr. Flegal wanted to press charges, you’d be in jail for assault.”
“I understand.”
“I’m not sure you do.” She leaned toward him. “Your actions today make you the dangerous one. You don’t have a right to attack someone because they’re giving flowers to your pen name. Do you understand that?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Nor do you have the right to attack someone who is just standing on your porch, no matter what they’ve said to you in the past. Self-defense means just that. You have to defend yourself against imminent bodily harm. Whatever you thought Mr. Flegal had threatened, you had to know that he wouldn’t have hurt you.”
“He could have had a gun in those flowers.”
“And if he did, you disarmed him when you threw the flowers over the railing.”
Rick rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “This has been driving me crazy.”
Tasha studied him. He seemed to be telling the truth. She’d worked with other stalking victims before, and they all felt this combination of helplessness and rage.
“You need police involvement,” she said, surprised that the words had come out of her mouth.
He raised his head, looking surprised. “Are you offering?”
Apparently she was, even though she didn’t want to be. “I’m working on a major homicide right now.”
Rick nodded, as if he expected her to back away from this. “All right.”
“But I might be able to find out the identity of your stalker,” Tasha said.
“How would you do that?”
“Let me see the basket he gave you. We’ll check for fingerprints. That’d be a good place to start.”
“I tossed it.”
Tasha sighed. This wasn’t going to be easy. Lou was going to be angry at her for offering. But she wanted to see if Rick was on the level.
She wanted him to be on the level.
“There should be other ways to find him,” she said. “But even if we do, all we can do is get a judge to issue a restraining order unless your stalker breaks the law. Even if he gets convicted of whatever crime he commits, when he gets out he’ll come back. They always do.”
“I know the drill,” Rick said. “The Chicago police already gave it to me. I moved on their advice, remember?”
So he said. But she didn’t want to sound that cynical. “Can you give me your contact in the Chicago police department?”
“It’s a Detective Stafford,” Rick said. “I don’t know his number offhand but I have it at home.”
“Good,” Tasha said. “The more he can tell me, the better. And maybe they can fax me their sketch.”
“It looked like Flegal,” Rick said.
“I’d like to see that for myself.”
His gaze met hers. “You still don’t entirely believe me, do you?”
“You threw a lot at me today,” she said. “Your attack on Flegal,
your profession, and then this story. You have to know how it sounds.”
“I do,” he said. “That’s why I’ve been taking care of it myself.”
“If taking care of it yourself means attacking the wrong people, then the only person you hurt is you.” She stood. “Let me handle this. I’ll see what we can get done. Otherwise, you might have to move again.”
“And have him follow me again?”
Tasha was silent for a long moment. If Rick was telling the truth, she could completely understand his frustration. Moving was supposed to solve the problem once and for all, not make it worse.
“I’ll do my best,” she said softly. “I promise.”
NINETEEN
RICK LEFT FEELING curiously upbeat. Even when he realized, as he stepped out of the precinct, that he had no way to get home, he didn’t get angry. He felt as if a weight had lifted off of him. He hadn’t realized how much his own silence had oppressed him.
He walked down the empty street toward a nearby convenience store. He’d use the payphone there to call a cab.
It was still mid-afternoon, but it felt like an entire lifetime had gone by. The anger that had flooded him when he saw the deliveryman—Flegal—had dissipated, leaving him spent. Then he saw Tasha, and realized that she wasn’t who he had thought she was. No wonder her rich, snobby family disapproved of her work. It wasn’t the kind of job a person got when she graduated from an Ivy League school. And it wasn’t the kind of job a parent could brag about to her social climbing friends.
He wondered if Tasha believed him. He wasn’t sure she did. She had been angry about his behavior, and he couldn’t blame her. He was appalled to learn that this Flegal character was from a flower shop, and even more appalled to think that he might have beaten the wrong man senseless. In a way, he’d been lucky that Flegal had some sort of post-traumatic stress flashback to childhood. If Flegal had stood up to him, then Rick might have beat him bloody.
But of course, if Flegal had stood up to him, he probably would have identified himself and argued a bit with Rick before it ever came to blows.
Rick crossed the parking lot to the convenience store. A Chevy was parked out front, and a young attendant stood behind the counter, thumbing through the pages of the Star. The pay phone was just inside the door.
It was ironic, really, the way his life had turned out. He had all the money he needed from a job he couldn’t admit to—a job he was embarrassed to admit to, if he told the truth—and because of that job, he’d lost a home, a girlfriend, and probably the chance at having another one.
He couldn’t even really make up with his family—not if the Creep was going to threaten them too.
Maybe he should take Tasha’s advice. Maybe he should move once more. But this time, maybe he should sneak off in the middle of the night, never to be seen again.
***
“Now, I heard everything.” Lou was standing just outside the interrogation room. “He has the right to beat up on this guy because he thought this guy was stalking his imaginary friend.”
“His pen name,” Tasha said.
“Whatever. You read this Jessamyn Chance person?”
“The books have been on the bestseller list off and on for the past decade, Lou.”
“Yeah? That’s supposed to impress me?”
“No,” Tasha said. “But you are supposed to recognize the name.”
Lou shook his head. “You know I don’t read that crap.”
“Oh, yeah, I forgot,” Tasha said. “You’re the one who hasn’t read anything published after 1940.”
“Can I help it if my tastes in literature are more refined than yours?”
She frowned at him, then crossed her arms and leaned against the wall. “What’d you think of the interview?”
“I told you.”
“You didn’t believe him?”
“My hormones aren’t the ones racing here.”
“That’s not fair, Lou.”
He glanced down the hall, as if to make sure they were alone. “Look, Tash, you started out good. Call me Detective Morgan, and all that. But by the end, he’s calling you Tash, and you’re promising to help him. You’d gone in there thinking you might convince Flegal to press charges.”
“You still think he’s dangerous?”
Lou took a deep breath. “Here’s what I think. We got problems every which way. Let’s, for one minute, say this guy’s job checks out. Then what he’s doing is making up lies for a living, right?”
“Stories,” Tasha corrected.
“I don’t know about your family,” Lou said, “but in mine, lies were always called stories.”
Tasha knew better than to say anything. In her family, they were called stories too.
“So his job checks out,” Lou said, undeterred by her silence, “and what are we left with? A guy who is so good at making up stories—lies—that people pay him for it.”
“You’re saying he lied to me?”
“How many people do you know come into that room and tell the truth?”
Lou was right about that. Hardly anyone did. Tasha kicked some imaginary dust with her right foot.
“He didn’t have to say anything,” she said. “He could have left. He was going to leave.”
“Sure, he could have left,” Lou said. “But he’s a smart guy. He proved that when he said he knew that Flegal wasn’t going to press charges just by the way you were treating him. Isn’t it better to leave you thinking you need to help him than thinking you need to push Flegal to press charges?”
“So I go over there,” Tasha said, “and he what? Lies to me some more? At some point, a farce of the nature you’re suggesting falls apart.”
“You go over there,” Lou said, “and he capitalizes on those feelings you have for him.”
Tasha straightened. “Are you saying that I’d forget I was a cop? That I’d forget why I was there?”
“Tash, you were soft with him.”
“Maybe I believed him, Lou.”
“Maybe you’re thinking with your gonads.”
She pushed off the wall. “You’re out of line.”
“Maybe,” Lou said. “And maybe I’m the only one thinking clearly.”
“All right,” she said. “Help me on this one. If it turns out that Rick is lying, then you can push Flegal to press charges. But if it turns out that he’s telling the truth, you owe me dinner.”
“How come if I win I get extra work and if you win you get a free meal?”
She smiled and shrugged. “Payback for telling me that I’m unprofessional.”
He didn’t smile in return. Instead, his gaze fell to the tape in her hands. “So, Ms. Professional, what’re you gonna do with that?”
She hesitated for just a moment. She had thought of destroying it in front of Rick, but she hadn’t. “I’m going to save it.”
“For what? A rainy day?”
“For the day we decide what to do with Rick.”
“He asked for a lawyer.”
“He wasn’t under arrest.”
“You shut off the damn tape before he told his cock-eye story.”
“You overheard everything.”
“Like that’ll stand up in court,” Lou said.
“I hope we’re not going to go to court,” Tasha said, and slipped the tape into her pocket.
“Yeah, me too,” Lou said. “Too much paperwork. And speaking of, we have a murder investigation to finish.”
“I know,” Tasha said.
“It takes priority over your guy.”
“He’s not my guy,” Tasha said.
“Still, let’s stop thinking about your pretty romance writer and get back to work.” Then Lou paused for a moment. “What kinda guy writes that crap, anyway?”
“I’ve been trying to figure that out myself,” Tasha said. The question bothered her more than she wanted to admit.
TWENTY
THE CAB LET Rick off in front of his house. His yard was covered with footprints.
The roses and ferns were strewn along the sidewalk. He stood on the curb for a moment, staring at the mess.
Was Tasha right? Was he running the risk of making things even worse for himself?
Maybe he should move again.
He had thought he was safe this time. Stalkers usually didn’t cross country to follow the objects of their obsession—although obviously, his had.
If Rick moved again, he’d have to do it stealthily. No moving company, no real estate agents. Simply a disappearance in the middle of the night—only his agent, his editor, and maybe Jane would know where he went.
The whole idea made his heart twist. There were only two places in the entire country where he wanted to live—Chicago and Portland. He couldn’t live in Chicago, his first choice, so he had come back home. He had no idea where he would go from here.
He would give Tasha a few days. She had said she would help him. And if she didn’t, maybe he could track a few things down himself. The floral shop might have a clue who ordered the bouquet. He would start there.
Rick glanced over his shoulder. Mrs. McGuilicuty was watching from her curtained window. He paused, thought briefly about crossing the street and asking her if she’d seen the Creep, and then changed his mind. After his display that morning, Mrs. McGuilicuty was probably terrified of him.
Her curtain moved slightly, and he got the sense that she had backed away from the window. He resisted the urge to wave at her, figuring it would only make things worse. So he turned around and headed up his walk.
A feeling of unease crept over him. Something was different—and it wasn’t the roses spilled on the ground. It was something else.
That sense he’d had in the interrogation room—the sense that he had left himself open to some sort of attack from the Creep—returned full force. And he finally understood why.
He hadn’t locked his front door. He had merely closed it. And the alarm was off. He had turned it all off just before he’d confronted the delivery guy.
Rick ran up the steps. The front door was closed as he’d left it. He’d been expecting to find it ajar. But the Creep was too smart for that. Rick reached for the doorknob and stopped, suddenly remembering all the research he’d done for his novels.
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