by T. L. Haddix
“Too much coffee, I think,” Beth answered. Rosa quickly agreed, shooting a grateful look in Beth’s direction. With a wave, they got in their vehicle, and waited for Beth to get safely in hers before they drove off.
As she started the vehicle, Beth couldn’t shake the unsettled feeling that she was being watched. With her headlights on ‘high’, she wheeled the Beast in a slow circle, watching as the bushes and dark areas surrounding the newspaper were illuminated by the beams. When she didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, she chided herself and headed toward home, a headache starting in her temples.
A quick glance at the clock told her that it was only ten o’clock. Beth was surprised. Today had been a really long day, and tomorrow promised to be just as long. She was itching to keep going on the research into the missing people, but as she stepped into the hall outside her apartment, the pull of her bed and the sleep it promised was nearly overwhelming.
Her head was throbbing by the time she locked the door behind her, and the decision was made. She grabbed a cold glass of milk, downed some ibuprofen, and headed to the bedroom. After setting her alarm clock to go off two hours earlier than usual, she undressed and climbed between the sheets. The research would wait a few more hours, but sleep wouldn’t.
~ * * * ~
As the vehicles left the parking lot and headed in opposite directions, the woman straightened from where she had been crouching in the shadowed doorway of the church across the street. No longer concerned with being seen, she stretched her cramped muscles. An intense satisfaction with her accomplishments sending an exhilarating rush through her body. Seeing Beth acting skittish as she came out of the paper had been very gratifying, and it let the woman know her plan was working beautifully.
With the darkness solid all around, the sound of traffic from the other side of the river carried across to Leroy. Keeping an ear open for any approaching vehicles on this side of the river, she slipped down the sidewalk alongside the church, then through the old cemetery behind it. Making her way to where she had parked her car, she got in and started the vehicle. The motor purred quietly, and she pulled away from the curb. She left the headlights off for a couple of blocks until she had cleared the darkened residential streets. The light from the dashboard was muted, purposefully turned as low as possible to reduce the chances of the vehicle’s driver being seen and identified. As she came upon the intersection of Highway 7 and the new bypass, she flipped the lights on and merged into what little traffic there was without a hitch.
As she drove out of Leroy toward her home, the woman smiled. Her mouth moved into a twisted grimace that she never let other people see, as it revealed too much about who she truly was. Thinking about the next present Beth would be receiving, her expression turned feral, and a low growl escaped her throat as her arousal built. With any luck, the latest present would be enough to get people thinking, and the questions would start. She wondered how Ms. Hudson would like having the tables turned on her, and she laughed out loud at the thought. Imagining her reaction was a very pleasurable experience for the stalker, and with some detachment, she decided to call her lover and ask him to come over later. He was nothing more than a means to an end, much as Beth was, but the woman was glad to make use of him while she could. By the time the stalker was finished, Beth Hudson and her family would have more than paid for their sins, and the stalker would have it no other way.
Chapter Seventeen
As she came in from her morning run on Thursday, Beth’s mind was full of the list of tasks she needed to accomplish that day. She glanced at her cell phone and saw that it was just shy of eight o’clock. She wondered if it was too early in the day to call Gordon, who she had been playing phone tag with since the day before. Deciding to wait until she was out of the shower, she unlocked her front door and stepped inside, nearly tripping over the thick envelope lying on the floor.
A cold wave of fear prickled over her skin, causing her hair to stand on end. A frantic look at the keypad of the alarm showed that it had not been triggered. Beth punched in the code to disarm it and, closing and locking the door, hurried to the kitchen to grab a pair of tongs. Heart pounding with trepidation, she headed back into the hall to carefully lift the envelope up by a corner. When both sides were blank, she closed her eyes for a moment, her heart sinking.
“I really didn’t need this today.” She headed for the dining room and tossed the envelope onto the table. The flap was sealed with a butterfly clasp, the adhesive not utilized. Going back to the kitchen, she grabbed a case knife. Once back in the dining room, she took a deep breath to steady her nerves and carefully opened the clasp with the tongs.
“Here goes nothing.” She picked the envelope up by its end and dumped the contents onto the table, recoiling as she saw its contents.
Dozens of glossy color photos spilled out, sliding across the table like a macabre deck of cards. All the pictures were of her, most of them had been taken when she was with different men, and in every single picture, her face was scratched out. The images covered a period of several weeks and showed her meeting with Gordon, with other sources, with her brothers, with Ethan, and even with Chad Ormsby.
As she remembered the feeling of being observed from the other night, she shuddered. She had written the feeling off to paranoia and fatigue, but obviously her instincts had been correct. Moving the pictures aside, she saw a folded piece of paper. Her stomach roiled with a wave of nausea and dread as she used the tongs and knife to spread the note open. A breath hissed through her teeth as she read the vile words.
“How many times has your father had to treat you for clap or perform an abortion for your bastards? Does your mother know you sleep with your brothers? You’re worse than the whores who stand on the street corners. Your punishment will fit your crimes.”
Beth dropped the utensils and backed away, reeling into the kitchen. She felt cold sweat pop out all over her body, and greasy nausea threatened to overwhelm her. When she thought she could move without throwing up, she straightened and reached for her cell phone. She had an instant’s debate over whether to call Ethan or Jason, but knew she couldn’t call her brother with this. Dialing Ethan’s number, she waited for him to answer and fought against the nausea that was still churning in her stomach.
“It’s me,” she said when he answered. “I got another package. Can you come?”
There was shocked hesitation, and then he spoke, his voice gruff. “Where are you, the office?”
“No, I’m at home. At my apartment.”
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes. I’m at home. You okay until I get there?”
“I’m working on it. Don’t call Jason, not until you’ve seen this, okay?”
“It’s that bad?”
She swallowed. “Yes.”
As she closed the phone, she realized that her legs were giving out and sank down to the floor. Knees drawn up to her chest, she waited.
~ * * * ~
Less than twenty minutes had elapsed when Ethan rang the doorbell, causing her to jump up clumsily from the kitchen floor and hurry down the hall to unlock the door. As she stood back for him to enter, she saw that he was dressed in a t-shirt and worn pair of jeans. His hair was rumpled, and he had a heavy shadow of a beard. She realized she must have gotten him out of bed.
“Oh, God, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you’d be asleep.”
He shrugged off the apology as he took in her ashen face and the shaking she hadn’t managed to conquer. “Don’t worry about it,” he told her gruffly. “Where’s the package?”
“Dining room.” She followed after him slowly. He sat the evidence kit down and pulled on gloves as he glanced over the photos.
“You didn’t touch any of it?”
She shook her head from where she stood just outside the dining room. “No, I knew as soon as I saw it that it was probably from whoever sent the last one. I grabbed the tongs and the knife and used those.”
He studied her rigid posture for a m
oment before turning back to the table, and cursed as he read the note.
“Pretty nasty, isn’t it?” She turned to stand at the kitchen counter, her gaze diverted out the small window over the sink.
“Well, I wouldn’t call it an endearing love letter, no.”
The very quietness of his voice was a warning. She chanced looking toward him and saw that he was watching her, his gaze troubled. With reluctance, she walked into the dining room, the harshness of the photos a striking contrast against the wood of the table.
“The writing looks like a match to the other note,” Ethan said quietly. He held the paper out toward her, but Beth shook her head.
“I don’t need to read it again. I’ll never forget what it says.” She looked away, unable to prevent the tears that had been threatening from spilling over.
Dropping the note onto the table, he pulled off his gloves as she turned away and hurried through the kitchen, where he caught up with her.
“Beth, wait.” He stopped her with a hand on her arm and turned her around, and she went into his arms with a sob. As she clung to him, he wrapped his arms around her tightly, running one hand over her hair. He made soothing noises as she cried, pressing soft kisses to her hair. “I’m here. It’s okay, sweetheart, I’m here.”
For long minutes, Beth cried. All the stress and uncertainty had finally caught up to her, and the package was just the final straw. When the tears slowed to a trickle, Ethan drew back to look at her face. Unable to meet his gaze, she pulled away and walked into the living room for tissues. Once she’d cleaned her face, she turned to head back to the kitchen, not realizing Ethan had walked up behind her. He caught her and drew her close again.
“I’m sorry.”
Beth shook her head, and rested her hands on his chest. She tried to smile and put on a brave face, but her mouth trembled, instead. “It isn’t your fault.”
“No, but I can’t stop it.” He cupped her face and gently rubbed his thumb over her lips. Slowly, he bent his head and brushed her mouth with his. Beth’s hands curled into his shirt, and when he moved his lips away from hers, she couldn’t stop the whimper of protest that escaped. Ethan drew in a sharp breath at the sound, and bent to recapture her mouth in an intense, sensual kiss.
Beth more than met him halfway, and wound her arms around his neck as she leaned into him. The sheer sensations nearly overwhelmed her – the warmth of his body, the gentle way his hands touched her. One of his hands supported the back of her head, holding her firmly in place for his kiss, while the other hand pulled her body closer to his. He drew her up on her toes, pressing her body against his from shoulder to hip.
Like a scene out of a dream, the kiss went on and on. Each time Ethan would pull back, Beth would follow him. The desperate tension in the embrace ratcheted up to nearly unbearable levels, until finally, the ringing of Beth’s cell phone interrupted them. As they pulled back, they stood there staring at each other, and Beth realized Ethan’s heart was racing as madly as hers. Slowly, he released her and stood back. When the phone shrilled again, she snapped out of the fog she had been in. Breathless, she answered the call, still a little dazed.
“Hello? Oh, hi Gordon. No, no, it’s okay. I’m in the middle of something right this second. Do you mind if I call you back? I know, we’ve been playing tag.” She listened for a minute as he spoke. “That’s fine. In an hour, then.” She laid the phone down carefully and looked at Ethan, who was watching her with a guarded expression.
Ethan was the first to look away. He pushed himself away from the counter and cleared his throat. “I’d better get this stuff processed.”
She followed him into the dining room and watched as he donned a new pair of gloves. He folded the note and slid it back into the envelope, then laid the photos out in rows.
“Obviously I know who most of these men are. Some, though, I’m not sure about. Tell me their names?” He pointed to the images in question, including the ones with Gordon.
She hesitated. “A couple of them are sources who want to remain confidential. These are from the animal shelter - the auditor the state brought in.” She told him the man’s name, and he wrote it down.
“Who is he?” He pointed to a picture of Gordon that had been taken the day they’d met in the park, which showed him and Beth sitting on the bench, engrossed in conversation.
She felt her cheeks flush. “His name is Gordon. He’s a source, and I met with him last week. That’s all I can really tell you.”
Ethan had grown very still, and Beth figured he was remembering the phone call that had interrupted them. She thought he was going to say something, but at the last minute, he just shook his head.
“I’m sorry, Ethan. I have to protect my sources.”
“Even when one of those sources could be the person sending you these packages?” he asked in a clipped tone.
She felt the sting of his disapproval, and crossed her arms defensively. “Even then. I’m looking into my sources, and I have Charlie Clark doing background checks. If anything suspicious turns up, I’ll let you know as soon as it does. I can’t just hand over their information so that you can question them if they don’t have anything to do with this. A reporter’s sources are one of their biggest assets, you know that. If people don’t trust me to keep my mouth shut, they won’t come to me with information or stories.”
“They won’t come to you if you’re dead at the hands of some crazed stalker, either,” he growled.
Beth’s eyes widened, but before she could respond, her phone rang again. She cursed. “It’s Marshall. I have to take this.”
While she took the call, she watched Ethan snap pictures of the package’s contents and place the desecrated photos back inside the original envelope. He stuffed all of it into a large evidence bag and labeled it before putting it inside his evidence kit. By the time she finished the call, he was ready to leave. She followed him to the door, defensive, frustrated, and with no clue of what to say.
He pulled the door open and looked down at her with a quiet intensity. “I’ll drop these off to the lab before I head back out to the house. About what happened here today.” He stopped, cheeks flushed. “I’m sorry. It shouldn’t have - I shouldn’t have...”
Beth stopped him with an upraised hand, in no mood to hear his regrets. “It was a kiss, Ethan, and I think we both know that it was bound to happen sooner or later. Let’s just pretend it didn’t. Will you call Jason? Tell him about the photos?”
Clearly unhappy about the change of subject, he nodded. “I’ll call him on my way home. He’s going to be upset that you didn’t call him first,” Ethan warned her as he moved into the outside hall.
“I know that, but I couldn’t show him that note. It was just too much.”
“It is that. Be careful out there?” For a minute, she thought he was going to say something else, but he changed his mind and headed down the hall.
Locking the door behind him, she leaned back against the cold metal with a sigh. The kiss had distracted her from the real issue at hand, but now that Ethan was gone, fear slowly crept back in. Straightening, she moved to the alarm and set it, hoping she’d feel safe enough with it on that she’d be able to shower. Fear seemed to be her constant companion these days, and she was growing very weary of its shadow.
~ * * * ~
Ethan reached his truck and climbed inside with a sigh of relief. His knees were still a little weak, and for a few moments he just sat there, thinking about the kiss. Maybe Beth was right about forgetting it had ever happened. He just wished she had included instructions on how to do that.
As he started the engine and shifted into gear, he thought about the pictures, and a surge of fury ran through him. Most of the time he loved being a detective, but cases like this frustrated him to no end. Investigations that included stalker-like behavior usually didn’t end well, and caused him to question the law he had sworn to uphold. That Beth was involved just twisted the screws that much harder.
Fro
m the time he was a rebellious teenager and Wyatt had knocked some sense into him, all Ethan had wanted to do was be able to help people the way the sheriff did, to protect and serve. He looked up to Wyatt as an idealized savior of sorts, a father figure and hero combined. While Ethan and his stepfather had finally managed to forge a tight relationship as adults, Wyatt understood the personal conflict that Ethan battled on a daily basis. The two men had bonded, and once Ethan had seen the world from Wyatt’s perspective, his path was clear. He wanted to return the favor the sheriff had done him by paying it forward, knowing that if he affected just one person the way Wyatt had affected him, the job was worth the stress and risk.
Now that he had achieved what he thought it was he wanted, however, he was finding it an empty victory. Yes, he was making a difference in the community, but at night he went home to an empty house. As he watched the people around him pair off and start families, he realized that, before long, he was going to be the only one left alone. And if Beth happened to find someone? He didn’t know how he would stand seeing her permanently attached to another man.
Dropping off the latest package at the crime lab, he asked the technician in charge to try and get a rush on processing it. She assured him she would, and he headed back to the parking lot with the hope that he would be able to sneak out without being stopped. He had been up late the previous night working on a burglary case, and wanted to get a few more hours of sleep before his shift started that evening. As he headed down the steps, he moved out of the way of the man and woman who were walking up to the courthouse. The woman raised her head and sent Ethan a big smile when she recognized him. She told her companion to go ahead and stopped when she and Ethan were on the same level.
“Hey, Ruby.”
“Ethan Moore, where’ve you been hiding yourself?” she asked, looking him over from head to toe with a quick glance that told Ethan she liked what she saw. The legal assistant had been trying for a while now to get him to take their relationship into the personal realm. Ethan wasn’t really interested, but Ruby was stubborn. Curvaceous and outgoing, she was very sure of herself. She also came from common stock, like he did. Still feeling raw from his encounter with Beth, he returned her smile with a bit more warmth than he would have normally.
