The Stalker

by Bill Pronzini

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “How do you feel?”

  “Fine,” he said. “And you?”

  “I’m all right.”

  “You ... weren’t hurt, were you?”

  “No.”

  She folded her hands in her lap, and they looked at one another for a long time. Neither of them smiled. He found himself thinking back to that first day he had met her, in the café in Sugar Pine Valley, and he remembered how he had felt on that day, the thoughts which had entered his mind. He felt the same way now, as if he was seeing her for the first time: desire, tenderness, protectiveness, needing. His throat was very dry.

  He said finally, “Do you know about it?”

  “Yes, they told me.”

  “All of it?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry, Andrea.”

  “So am I.”

  “I couldn’t tell you about it,” he said. “You know that, don’t you?”

  “I know that.”

  He was silent for a long moment; then, his eyes still locked with hers, he said, “I love you, Andrea. I tried to stop loving you, but I couldn’t do it.”

  There was moisture in her eyes now, and a faint tremble to her lower lip. She nodded almost imperceptibly.

  “Do you love me?”

  “Do you have to ask?”

  “No,” he said. “But I need to hear you say it.”

  “I love you,” she said.

  “Andrea, I know why you left last Saturday”

  She searched his face. “Yes, I think you do.”

  “I’m not the same man I was then.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  He said, “What will you do now?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Will you stay with me?”

  “You know the answer to that.”

  “I need to hear you say it.”

  “I love you,” she said. “I’ll stay with you, I belong with you.”

  “It won’t be easy for a while. It may never be easy again.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “There’ll be a full investigation,” he said. “Even though the Statute of Limitations ran out on the robbery a long time ago. They told me that. They’ll hold me until they find some way to prosecute me; and even if they can’t find a way, there’s a good chance the armored car’s insurance company will bring a civil suit against me for restitution of the stolen money.”

  She was silent.

  “I might go to prison,” he said.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Even if I go free, there’s going to be a lot of notoriety connected with all this.”

  “People forget,” she said. “People forgive.”

  “It won’t be easy,” he said again.

  She smiled for the first time, fleeting, sad. “It will be easier than it was in the past,” she said. She rose from the chair and sat beside him on the bed and touched his hand.

  He took her hand and squeezed it inside his own, looking up at her. They remained like that, not speaking, looking at one another under the bright fluorescent lights.

  After a long time he said, “It’s going to be all right, Andrea.”

  She kissed his forehead lightly.

  And he said again, “It’s going to be all right.”