by Desiree Holt
“I hear you.” She was aware of Blake coming up behind her now now, could almost feel his eyes boring holes in her back. “I was just about to call you, anyway. You need to get someone over here. Now. Our mysterious friend broke in here and decorated the living room with a slew of messages. And this time he’s added a little something to it.”
“Like what?”
“Like some personalized damage. Can you get someone here to print the place and bag the stuff?”
“I’d bet money Grant Kennelly spotted him somehow, went to see what was going on and the stalker attacked him. Hold on.” Sam heard voices in the background, then Avery came back on the phone again. “Sheri’s still there and I’m coming, too. Oh, and find out when Blake’s parents are expected back. We’ll station someone at the house until this thing is taken care of.”
“I’ll see you when you get here.”
Sam disconnected and shoved the phone in her pocket. Blake was staring outside at the activity.
“What’s going on, Sam?” His voice was tight with tension. “What’s happened now? If it has to do with me, I want to know.”
“That was Avery. She’s on her way over.”
“For this?” He pointed toward the living room. “This doesn’t seem like something she’d need to see for herself.” When she didn’t say anything, he growled, “Come on, Sam. Tell me. We can’t have any secrets here. What the hell is going on? And why are there people all over the Kennellys’ back yard? Did she happen to say anything about that?”
Sam took a deep breath. “Let’s sit down at the table for a minute.”
“I’m fine standing,” he snapped. “Just spit it out.”
She studied his face, checking to make sure he wasn’t about to fall apart. “We think that when your stalker broke into this house to do his damage, your neighbor in the back saw him and went to check on him. Blake, he was beaten up pretty badly. According to the EMTs, it’s a miracle he isn’t dead.”
“What?” Every bit of color drained from his face and his eyes widened in shock. It took him a minute to speak. “Grant Kennelly was beaten nearly to death? Are you fucking kidding me?”
Sam was afraid he might pass out. She had to fight the urge to throw her arms around him, press her body to his and whisper soothing words in his ear. To give him comfort the best way she knew, except this was neither the time nor the place. But she was pleased when he reached for her hand and gripped it tightly.
Sam shook her head. “Sheri got the call about an hour ago. She’ll be over here in a minute, as soon as Avery arrives. She’ll tell you all about it.”
“Where is he? I want to see him.” He started toward the door.
Sam held up a hand to stop him. “He’s at County General. And you can’t see him for a couple of very good reasons.”
“Yeah?” The look he gave her was a mixture of rage and hostility. “And what would they be?”
“For one thing,” she told him, in a voice she hoped would calm him, “he’s unconscious and being examined to see how bad the damage is. Sheri said it was pretty bad.”
Sam watched the rest of the color leach from Blake’s face.
“Jesus,” he whispered.
“For another, you can’t do him any good. You have to protect yourself right now.” And that was her concern. His safety.
“Isn’t that a little self-absorbed? Grant nearly got killed because of me. I want him to know how sorry I am. And his wife.” He raked his fingers through his hair with his free hand. “Sharon. God. She must be a mess.”
“An officer is staying with Grant and Sharon’s sister is coming from Sarasota to be with her. Sheri will take care of them. My concern is keeping you safe. That’s what you hired me to do, remember?”
“Maybe I should have hired someone to take care of the neighbors, too.”
“Blake.” She took one of his hands in both her of hers, glad when he didn’t pull away. “No one could have foreseen this. It’s all being handled. We were caught with our pants down this time. Everything was focused on you personally and Avery knew your parents were out of town. Our bad. We’ll be more on top of things after this.”
Blake suddenly looked as if all he air had been let out of him. “I can’t imagine what the hell I’ve ever done to bring this on myself.”
On impulse, she lifted his hand and placed a kiss on it.
So much for not sending the wrong signals.
“Vigilance will find out. They always do.” She tried to find words to reassure him. “Blake, I am so very, very sorry. I know that doesn’t help, but I promise you, we’ll get this bastard.”
“I hope before he destroys my entire life and everyone around me.” He snapped his fingers. “My folks. They’ll be back from their cruise shortly. I can’t leave them here unprotected.”
“All taken care of,” she assured him. “Let me know exactly when they plan to return. Avery’s going to assign someone to keep an eye on them until this is all over.”
Blake snorted a laugh. “I’m sure they’ll love that. My dad will probably have twenty-seven fits, but he’ll be happy that my mother will be safe. But how do I explain that something I did caused all this and I don’t even know what the fuck it is?” He sighed. “But okay, as long as they are protected he can get as mad as he wants.” He looked out the window at the back yard. “There’s a ton of cops out there. I didn’t think the Arrowhead Bay force was that big.”
“It isn’t. I mean, there’s hardly ever any crime except speeding, shoplifting, and the occasional domestic abuse. Sheri has an arrangement with the county sheriff to provide people when it’s needed.”
“Like today,” he said, his tone edged with bitterness.
“Yes, like today.”
She’d tell him to sit down and try not to think about what happened, but that would sound stupid. She wanted a way to make him better and take away the pain that etched lines in his face. She could feel his pain herself, was searching for the right words to say and not doing a very good job. A knock on the door interrupted her thoughts and she hurried to let Avery in. Right behind her was her sister, Sheridan March, Arrowhead Bay’s chief of police. They both looked very grim.
“How about some details?” Sam asked, then stood back to let everyone in. “Can you fill me in on everything?”
“Yes. Fine. Let’s check what your stalker did first.” Avery stopped at the entrance to the living room and took in every bit of the scene. “Wow! Whoever this is wants to make sure Blake gets the message.” She shook her head when she spotted the destruction of the statue. “And he continues to personalize it.” She turned back to Sam. “Where’s Blake?”
“Blake’s right here.” He walked in from the kitchen and stood next to Sam. “Hello, Sheri. How about filling me in on everything? Is it true this bastard beat the shit out of Grant Kennelly?”
Sheri nodded. “At least that’s what our theory is.”
“Grant knows my folks are away. If he saw some stranger trying to get in he’d come over to check it out. Are you running this investigation yourself?”
Sheri shook her head. “Normally I would, but this has much larger implications. If in fact it’s Blake’s stalker, I want people experienced with this and with more resources on it. The county sheriff is sending a detective who will be lead on this. Plus we get to use the county resources. Those people in the yard are from the medical examiner’s office and from forensics.”
“I assume the yellow tape is around where Grant was found?”
“Yes. We’re looking for footprints, impressions, anything we can pick up. We’re taking grass clipping everywhere there’s blood spatter.”
Sam tugged him away from the window and the scene in the yard. “You don’t need to see that. Come on.”
“I want to know everything. This happened because of me. Grant sure didn’t expect to get beaten
all to hell for his troubles.”
“Our theory is it happened on your back porch. Then he was carried unconscious across both yards, right through that row of bushes. The earth is damp. I think Grant must have watered earlier today. Anyway, the added weight of carrying a guy that big made the attacker step harder into the damp earth and we’ve got a couple of good footprints. At least we’ll know what size shoe he wears,” Sheri said.
“Sheri’s people are doing a canvass of the area,” Avery added, “to see if anyone noticed strange vehicles or anything. Just anything out of the ordinary. We know he was at the Driftwood. He probably saw you drive away and followed you.”
“Followed?” Blake interrupted. “I thought you said we were clean.”
“I was watching for anything like that,” Sam interjected, “but with the tourist traffic it was hard to tell.”
Blake frowned. “How did he know how much time he’d have?”
“If he did follow us to Vigilance,” Sam pointed out, “he probably figured he’d have enough time for his mischief while we were there.”
“But why go to my parents’ home? They have nothing to do with this. Just to find another way to stick it to me?”
“Probably. He may have managed to learn they were out of town and thought you’d be staying there.”
“And he didn’t worry about being seen?”
“I’m sure he had some kind of disguise. Think about this. The guy is very good at making himself invisible. Unremarkable. Someone nobody would notice. That’s how he gets away with leaving these messages for you.”
“I want to know whatever you find,” Blake told them. “Anything at all. This is even more personal for me now.”
“I’ll let you know the minute I know.” Sheri shook her head. “When Avery told me you were coming to meet with her about a stalker, I don’t think either of us had any idea he’d escalate this far.”
“I didn’t, for sure.” Blake emptied what was left of his coffee in the sink and turned back to look at them. “Who found Grant?”
“Sharon Kennelly, when she came home from lunch with her friends. She—”
“His wife found him?”
“She knew Grant was home,” Sheri continued, “but she didn’t see him anywhere and he didn’t answer when she called his name. She went into the yard to see if he was out there, and found him unconscious in the hedges.”
Blake looked ready to pass out and Sam felt sick herself. For a woman like Sharon Kennelly to find her husband in that condition would be a real shock.
“And he was stuffed into that hedgerow?” Blake closed his eyes, a sick look on his face.
Sheri’s features set in a hard look. “Yes. She almost missed him but he was wearing a bright yellow golf shirt. It caught her eye.”
“It makes me sick that Grant Kennelly got caught up in this psycho’s attacks on me.”
Again Sam had to fight the urge to touch him in some way, to assure him he wasn’t alone in all this. “You okay?” she asked him. “Want a drink?”
“No, I’m not, and no, I don’t want a drink.” He shook his head. “Thanks anyway.” But he looked totally shell-shocked.
“How about a fresh cup of coffee, then?”
“Yeah, okay. Coffee’s good. Jesus!” He blew out a breath. “I can’t believe this.” He looked at Avery. “Do we know how Grant is? How bad it is?”
Sheri shook her head. “Not yet. They’re still running tests and taking X-rays. We know he has a couple of broken bones, maybe a broken nose. A concussion most likely, but as yet we don’t know how bad it is, and won’t until he comes out of it. My officer called me from the hospital to bring me up to date. As soon as I have a report I’ll let you know.”
“I want to cover any expenses their insurance doesn’t. That’s nonnegotiable. I don’t care how you do it but make it happen.”
Sheri nodded. “I’ll take care of it with the hospital administrator.”
Sam took his empty mug and went to brew the coffee, even knowing he probably wouldn’t drink it.
“You’ll be seeing them poking around your yard, too, Blake,” Sheri said. “We’re looking for anything we can find.”
He banged his hand on the counter. “Damn it all to hell. Who is this fucker? Why is he so fixated with me?”
“That’s what we’re going to find out,” Sam assured him. She hated the deepening lines of stress in his face and the misery in his eyes.
Sheri headed toward the front door. “I’m going back to the Kennellys to see what we’ve come up with there. Avery, my fingerprint guy will be here as soon as he’s finished at the Kennellys. Sam, you make sure you have eyes on Blake at all times.”
“That’s my job.”
“Yes,” Avery answered. “Keep your eye on your client at all times and your gun always at the ready. There’s no telling what this psychopath will do.” She gestured toward the back door. “Unless we find evidence to the contrary, we’re going to assume the stalker got in the house that way. Probably picked the lock.”
Blake leaned against the counter, making a visible effort to pull himself together. “You know, writing about this stuff as fiction is a lot different from the reality.”
“By the way.” Avery pulled out her cell and scrolled through her notes. “We traced the number those texts came from today. It belongs to a woman named Sarah Jo Murphy who lives in Plainfield, Minnesota.”
Blake’s eyebrows rose. “Minnesota?”
“Yeah. She was shocked as hell when a cop showed up on her doorstep and asked to see her phone. She had just returned from a trip with two friends but they were all over the East coast on a three-week trip. It could have happened anywhere. The police checked out her background thoroughly and cleared her. She’s not the one sending you the messages.”
“Jesus.” Blake raked his fingers through his hair again, a gesture Sam had come to realize he did when he was frustrated or upset.
“Let’s talk about fingerprints,” Avery said. “We’ve got yours but we don’t have any from your parents to eliminate them.”
“My dad was in the military and my mother worked as a nurse in a psychiatric facility years ago. They’d be in the system, right?”
“Yes. That will help.”
A knock sounded at the back door and Avery went to open it. When she came back she had a tall, thin man with her.
“Guys, this is Jerry, Sheri’s tech. She and I decided we didn’t need people tripping over each other. Since he’s already here printing the back door and anything out there the stalker might have touched, we decided he’d do your house as well. It’s actually all one case and this is more efficient.”
Less than five minutes passed before Jerry stepped in from the living room and handed Avery a small baggie with a wrinkled piece of paper in it.
“This was crumpled up and sitting in the remains of that statue. We took pictures of everything before I bagged it.”
Avery carried it to the breakfast table, smoothed it out, and read. Then she looked at Blake. “A love note from your stalker.”
“Let me see what else the asshole wrote.” He reached for the little baggie.
“No touching. Just come take a look.”
He walked over to the table and stared at the wrinkled paper. Sam stood next to him, reading with him. Even in its badly wrinkled shape the words were legible.
Sam frowned. “What the hell?”
I know what you did. I will destroy everything in your world because of it, just like this statue.
“It’s handwritten,” Sam pointed out.
Avery nodded. “Yes. I think he couldn’t resist the temptation and he didn’t have a printer with him. We’ll get the people at the sheriff’s forensics office to analyze the printing but I don’t hold out a lot of hope. This guy is turning out to be wicked smart.”
�
�He’s not that smart if the only thing he could do with Grant Kennelly was beat the crap out of him,” Blake pointed out. “Smart would have been to say, oops, mistake, and leave without calling any more attention to himself.”
“Don’t sell him short. I sense this is all new to him, but he’s very, very bright. And he may have gotten off on the violence.”
Blake just stared at the note, an angry red flush creeping up his skin, and his entire body tightened. When Sam touched his arm, she felt the tension in his muscles.
“Do you think he knew my mother collects this stuff? Has he dug so far into my life?” He looked from one woman to the other. “How is he getting this information? My God, is there no part of my life that’s safe?”
“Let’s dial it down a little.” Sam tried to sound as calm as possible. “This could just have been an opportunity that presented itself. We’ll get this bastard. I promise you. Before he does any more damage.”
“Any more damage?” He brushed away her hand and began to pace. “You mean before he actually kills someone? Because I’m pretty damn sure that since he thinks he got away with violence once, he won’t hesitate to do it again. Can you promise that?”
“I—”
“Blake, we’ll get him,” Avery assured him again. “We always do. Meanwhile, I have an assignment for you. I know you’ve been over it all with me, but tonight how about sitting down with Sam and going through it again. Only this time let’s do it a little differently. Tell her how you came to be a writer, what you did before, what your journey has been like since your first book was published. It’s possible something will pop up you’d forgotten all about.”
“Yeah, sure. Okay.”
“And with that I’m out of here. Sam, I’ll touch base with you later. You know to call if you need anything at all.”
“Got it covered.”
