Disgruntled

by Shelley Wall

  She glanced through the mail one by one, then stopped at a single sheet of paper with a typed message. Even the feel of the paper seemed cold and threatening. Todd’s footsteps caught her attention as he strode toward her.

  “Hi there.” He smiled and the troubles of the day melted somewhat. “Interesting mail?”

  She nodded and passed the slip of paper to him.

  21 CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  Wouldn’t you rather be at home eating dinner with a hubby and kids than working late at the office?

  What the hell? Todd’s mouth dropped as he gazed at the glaring words on the paper. So he had been right. Someone was watching her. Not just the neighborhood like a burglar would, but Reva.

  Todd flipped the paper over to search for handwriting or other marks. None. He frowned. “You know what this means, right?”

  She nodded. Her eyes were as big as marbles, the skin over her cheeks paled instantly. “We need to call the police back.” Her hand shook as he engulfed her fingers in his larger ones. She froze. Why would this happen now? Did she have a magnet on her back that attracted this type? Had he decided to follow her home after all? What had she done to deserve it all?

  “Reva, planting yourself here in the street doesn’t change it or fix it. Let’s go inside, okay?”

  Except she didn’t want to. It was safer outside in public view. Bad things didn’t happen there. They happened inside, where no one could see or know. She looked around searching for a face to associate to the note. The face she’d tried to leave behind. He wasn’t there, of course. There was an art to that type of punishment. It had to be unexpected and unwitnessed.

  ***

  “Um…want to fill me in on what you’re looking for? An escape route maybe? Or someone in particular? I’m here, Reva. Right in front of you.” The words jolted her attention back to him. He stroked her arm but she backed away. “We’ll handle this, okay? He’s not going to do this to you anymore. I swear it.”

  “You can’t stop it. You don’t know—”

  “We can stop it and we will. You, me, the police, your family, your neighbors. You’re not alone.”

  Across the street, Jeff from the baseball team jogged by and waved. “Hey, you two!”

  Not alone.

  Except, he had left the note to remind her just how alone she really was. And that he knew exactly where. The jackass hadn’t counted on me, though. Todd put an arm on Reva’s shoulder and guided her toward the house. “We’re going to make that call to the police, then you’re coming home with me. We’ll call your family and let them know as well.” “No. It’ll just make it worse.”

  He quirked a brow. “You really believe that? Or is that just something he told you to keep you from talking? Think about it. If you talk, he’s exposed for what he is. If you don’t, he can keep going. Putting you through hell. No, you were never meant to be quiet Reva. Sure, he beat it into you—but that’s not who you are. And it’s not who you need to be right now. We’re telling everyone. You hear me. Everyone.” He could almost feel the color return to her cheeks as he held her against his chest. The shaking stopped. “Okay.”

  They made the calls. The police came and the curious neighbors peered out windows. A couple walked by to check on them. It was the second time a police vehicle had been in the neighborhood in a week, and that raised everyone’s curiosity. Once the car had pulled away, Todd knocked on doors and spoke with each of her closest neighbors. By the end of the evening, it had traveled as far as three blocks. A neighborhood watch had been formed.

  Reva’s family was less calm. Two hours later, his small house was overflowing with people and a buzz of Spanish and English. He had to really concentrate to understand what had been said, but somewhere in the mix he thought the brothers had decided to take turns at her house on the couch.

  “She’s staying here with me,” Todd interjected.

  A short family eruption followed the statement, before Reva’s dad held up a hand. “No. Todd’s right. He won’t know to look here. If the boys stay at her place, he’ll run into a big surprise if he even thinks about trying something.” “Good point,” Ben added.

  Todd frowned. It would be unlikely any predator who appeared at her door would make it out without a sound beating. “You call the police immediately if he shows, or you see anything. Understand?”

  Ben ignored him. “Reva, you need anything from your house?”

  “Pretty much everything but this is overkill, guys.” Todd recognized that she had spoken less than a handful of words while the family rambled away. Didn’t they see the tension in her face? They all looked her direction. Reva tossed her hair back and met their gaze. “I know how to deal with this. It’s not that big of a deal.”

  “Not that big of a deal? Are you kidding me?” Todd barely managed to keep his voice controlled. “The man has already beaten you into the hospital and now he’s sneaking around in your backyard watching you—not to mention that note. Reva, this is definitely a big deal. It’s a huge one. Besides, even in normal circumstances, no one ever failed by being over-prepared for a situation.”

  He wanted to shake her. Instead, Todd pulled her to him and motioned for the others to leave. They’d all had their say. And had a plan.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. It just doesn’t feel the same. Nick wouldn’t do this.”

  “You probably never thought he’d hit you either when you met him. You thought he was better than that. Right?” She quieted for a minute. “I wanted to believe it. To believe he was a good man.”

  “He probably wanted to believe it himself. And he wanted others to also.”

  She pulled back and Todd lifted her chin. “So we take away his advantage and bring it all out into the daylight. Everyone knows and everyone watches. He’s too much of a coward to come near you in that situation.”

  Reva put a hand to his chest and dammit if he didn’t completely forget all the protective instincts and let his mind go back to the night before and the feel of that same hand stroking gently against his torso. Todd rubbed his eyes with a thumb and forefinger and forced the thought away. Or at least to the background. Was he really that messed up? The first thought he had was to get her back in the sheets? “Why are you here, Todd? This is a big mess. Why would anyone want to be a part of it if they didn’t have to? I don’t have a choice—can’t really run away it seems. You. You have options.”

  Did he? He supposed he could just walk away and let her figure it out on her own. And she would. Reva was smart and strong, even if she didn’t see it. God knows he didn’t really like or need the drama. Still, after all the crap he’d gone through with Annie, it had become obvious that as organized and devoted as he was with business—he’d never really put a lot of effort into a relationship. He thought he had but when you’re with someone that doesn’t really care about you, it’s easy to just do what they ask and let things flow. To keep them happy. It’s easy to believe that’s how it should be. He had always been good at most things he tried, so it never occurred to him that more effort made it more satisfying. Other than with Eric, of course. Eric was worth the effort. Being his dad was the best thing he had. Until now.

  “Most of the things that are worth having are worth working toward. Only the unimportant ones come easy, Reva, and that’s usually because we don’t care about the outcome.” She gave him a puzzled look and he realized he had spoken in tongues as far as she was concerned. But it made sense to him.

  “And maybe the good ones sneak up on you just like the bad things do. It’s hard to tell the difference.”

  22 CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  Brent shook his head to clear the vision of matted bloody hair from his mind. It shouldn’t have gone like that. He had just talked to the woman at the park and told her to leave him alone and mind her own business. He hadn’t done anything wrong, just hiked up his music. Big Deal. Without warning, she’d lunged at him.

  There had been no call for her to get a
ll up-tight anyway. He’d been there before. She sat in the grass with a bag of bread at her side, tearing off bits and throwing them to the bevy of pigeons that surrounded her. He hated pigeons. They were nasty birds, good for nothing but making a mess. She crooned at them, and as the sun hit her back, he realized it was Reva. Reva was sitting there, throwing tidbits to the worthless crowd of worthless creatures, encouraging them to huddle around and waste time. Waste space. Make his life difficult.

  He had no desire to see her at the park only minutes after he’d left work and expected to leave her behind also. The fact that she bothered with the pigeons made him bristle. Even more so when she shouted over her shoulder, “Turn that noise down!”

  The music was good and lively. It filtered through the park and added joviality to the afternoon. He had no intention of turning it down. He hit the plus button on his volume and noted her glare as the sound grew.

  Reva approached, the look of frustration evident in every forceful step. “I said to turn it down, not up, you idiot. Can’t you listen to the peacefulness of the park rather than that commercialized crap?”

  Brent ignored her. She could order him around at work but she had no business following him to the park. Didn’t she get it? He wasn’t interested. She might be attracted to him, but as much as he considered it, there was just no way. Sure, she was pretty in a way. Yet, she was incredibly difficult to get along with. He stepped toward her with his normal forced smile.

  “Reva, we have to quit meeting like this.”

  “Huh? Reva? Who’s Reva?” The woman looked perplexed. She hesitated to step further toward him. “Are you okay, dude?”

  Then, without his understanding, he looked down at her face covered with gravel from the park road and blood. Her hair was matted against her scalp and frothy with wine-colored shampoo. Only it wasn’t shampoo that oozed from her head. He stared at the startled expression on her face. It had begun as surprise but now what lay their permanently embedded in her features was—forgiveness. Why? He didn’t need her forgiveness. She was the one that followed him around, made his life miserable at work, then tried to seep into his off-time. As he stared longer, the features changed. It wasn’t Reva. She was shorter and a bit plumper. Her hair, though now matted, was straighter.

  What the hell?

  ***

  “Unless this Nick guy has a way of transporting himself from one place to another quickly, he’s not your peeping tom,” Officer Teckley stated on the phone. “According to our investigator, he has been at work every day at his job in Florida. In the evenings, he’s apparently joined a bowling league with his new girlfriend and, according to a neighbor, brings home a trophy almost once a month for some contest they’ve won…fairly consistently. Neighbor said he was obsessed with winning it. The guy’s quite charming and handsome. The girl’s a bit of a mouse though. Do me a favor, make a list of everyone that you’ve had an altercation with in the past month. Add to the list any new acquaintances that seemed random or odd. Email the list as soon as you get the chance, or you can fax it to the number on the card. We’ll canvas the neighborhood again too.” He has a new girlfriend. A bit of a mouse. Go figure. Reva imagined that people had thought her a mouse too.

  Reva measured the words with a solid amount of foreboding. Something in the back of her mind, said think. She had missed something. Something important—relevant. A coldness settled over her. Think. How would this keep happening? What started it?

  She looked at the clock on her desk. She had officially stared at the computer screen for fifteen minutes without typing. Not one single keystroke. She hadn’t taken her office phone off do-not disturb. Yet, from the flashing light, it was evident the messages had piled up. She hit the speaker button and typed in her code to hear them. Oddly, the first message recorded a time of three in the morning. “Reva, Brent here. I’m not going to be in today. I’ve had a personal thing come up and I need to be off for a day to take care of it. Nothing critical, but it needs addressing. The project shouldn’t be affected much. I can make it up over the weekend if needed. I’ll take a day of vacation. Thanks.” Reva exhaled a sigh of relief. One less piece of drama to deal with; she had more than her quota. The remaining messages had come just in the last couple of hours during her morning meeting. No big crisis but a few things needed immediate attention and she dived in. The day surged by and when she looked up that afternoon, she was amazed that the time showed five-thirty and all the staff had left for the day.

  “Hey.” Todd smiled when she arrived.

  Reva appreciated the comfort and warmth that came with the expression. “Hey back,” she acknowledged.

  He had waited on the steps of her house. He rose. When she walked toward the steps he dropped a kiss on her lips, light and warm. “Ready to go?”

  They had agreed to leave her car at her house and walk to his. He had wanted them to go through the backyard to further hide her escape but she adamantly refused. It was overkill. This was a random incident, not a threat. Once everyone realized that, her life would get back to normal. She would stop hiding in Todd’s spare room and her brothers would no longer take turns sleeping in her house. She would have all her things back in their normal places and not spread across an entire block. Todd would stop picking her socks from the living room floor, and her bag from the sofa only to position them neatly across her temporary bed in his spare room.

  He had not understood the importance of these small but intentional bad habits. Habits that Nick refused to tolerate. Todd hadn’t exactly liked them either but his method of dealing with it was less invasive and painful. Still, just letting the things be was important to Reva. He had not yet understood it. She disappointed him.

  His fingers grazed hers as they strode up the drive to his house. It was a big thing to not pull back. He didn’t understand that either. “I wanted to talk to you about the other night,” Todd said.

  “When the cops came?”

  “Um, no. When we climbed the fence. I mean when we were here and things got…”

  “Complicated. I know. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—” “No. That’s not what I meant. I didn’t want things to be like that. It was wrong.”

  Yes, she had expected that. The fact that he drew away as soon as things were done made her realize he hadn’t been pleased. She had tried to make it good, had spent a lot of time and effort trying to stimulate him sexually. And she knew she had, judging by his reaction. Yet, he had immediately gotten up after climaxing and apologized. He had muttered something about it being wrong then too. “I can do better. I will do better. I thought—”

  “Better? You’re kidding me, right?” He shot her a sideways glance.

  “Why would I kid about something like that?”

  “Reva, shit. I don’t want it to be better. It was fantastic. It was—everything.”

  She opened her mouth to respond then closed it in confusion. “Everything,” she repeated.

  “Yeah, everything. For me at least.” He stared at her. Reva felt the heat reach her face. He was insinuating she hadn’t liked it? She had finally been with someone that wanted to please her physically and it hadn’t been good for him. “I wanted to…” she started.

  “That’s just it. I knew that much but it seemed like you weren’t really acting on that. More like some robotic thing. You wanted to but stopped me.”

  “But I thought you were—” Yes, she had withdrawn when she thought he was finished and ready to rest. There was still a heat growing within her but she accepted that. She’d felt it before. He had not wanted to stop there. He had pushed to keep moving. It had confused and frustrated Reva. He was finished. Why did he continue kissing and stroking? “I was. I did.” He pulled her hands to his mouth. “But you didn’t. That’s not fair.”

  “Can we stop talking about this? This is way too personal. And would you quit picking up after me. I hate that.” When he’d unlocked the door, Reva shoved it open and clipped straight to her temporary room. She clicked the door shut b
ehind and set her laptop bag on the floor.

  The door flung open behind her and she whirled around. Damn. Forgot to lock the door. I’m slipping.

  “No, we can’t stop talking about this. If you don’t want me picking up your things, that’s fine. I’ll leave them.” He shrugged and stepped into the room. Reva shrank against the wall, expecting more.

  Todd dropped himself on the bed, his long legs extended in front and his hands linked in his lap. He stared at her. Reva kept her hands in front, ready to move, and leaned against the wall. “I’m sorry things didn’t work out as you hoped the other night. I’m not very good at all that, I guess.” “Is that what he told you?”

  “No. I just figured it out.”

  “That’s shit. Look, you’re fantastic. This isn’t about performance. If it were, you aced it.” He grinned. “But I’m not grading.” Todd ran a hand through his hair.

  “Then I don’t understand.”

  “Of course you don’t. You were so concentrated on me I couldn’t help but enjoy it. But I wanted you to also. Reva, that wasn’t just about me. It never should be. Hasn’t anyone every wanted to please you?” Todd stood and hooked his thumbs in his pockets. She struggled for a response but had none. He stepped out of the room and closed the door.

  23 CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  Brent surveyed his truck. It seemed fine. No worse for the wear. He’d get it detailed later in the day. For the most part, his scrubbing had done the trick. Fortunately, he’d been well out of the vehicle when she’d lunged so there was no need to clean the interior. Leaving her in the brush by the creek had been the only available hidden spot nearby. Based on the overgrowth, he doubted anyone had been that way in months.

  Brent gassed it and headed home. The disbelief of what had transpired weighed heavy on his mind. You could have just turned the music down, asshole, he told himself. And of course he could have. But it was Reva and she had issued yet another of her multitude of orders. And expected him just to follow suit without question. Who did she think she was to make demands when he was on personal time? Not to mention that she had been completely inflexible with his project lately, forcing him to take on new staff and broaden the scope to include more testing and additional steps. She didn’t trust him.