by Mariah Dietz
I glance at Maggie who’s undeterred with the brief exchange. “You want your usual?”
She nods in response. “Please.”
I place an order for us and for Pax, Arlo, Caleb, and Lincoln as well, though my doubt for Lincoln showing up has been growing since he dropped me off at my car without a word. I made it back to the house faster, expecting him to just go back home, but he surprised me by returning, his mask in place with a new set of barriers as he sat with Dad and made small talk about school and football, his gaze never steering in my direction.
When Shannon closes the window to gather our order, I roll my window up, rubbing my hands together before I turn the heat up.
“She was a little obvious,” Maggie says.
A laugh surfaces from my chest. “Right?” I look at my sister again, still trying to rearrange the memory of her in my head to fit how she looks now. “What are you doing?”
Her eyes are intent as she looks at me, holding the soggy paper crane to the vent in front of her.
“I’m sure it’s a joke,” I tell her. “Think about it. No one writes letters like that. It’s like words from an old cheesy movie or song lyrics or something. People don’t actually talk like that.”
“Someone left this on your car last night. They know where you live. This isn’t a small thing.”
“It might have been there before I got home. It was dark last night, and I wasn’t looking for it. Besides, it has to be a joke.”
Doubt weighs on her lips as she tries to smile, a teetering glimpse of hope that keeps succumbing to suspicion. “Let’s just see what it says.”
Unfortunately, time is on Maggie’s side, our order taking far longer than it should due to the new girl Sabrina spilling a filled pot of coffee that requires everyone to pause while it’s cleaned up.
Jake appears at the window, a crooked grin calling me to roll my window back down. “Shannon mentioned you ordered the entire store.”
“I’d settle for half if I can get it in the next three minutes.”
He barks out a laugh. “You’ve seen her work, right?”
I glance at the clock on the dash of my car, taunting me for being late after threatening Pax that I’d leave him if they were late.
“You in a hurry?” Jake asks, leaning forward, his fingers wrapping around the edge of the metal landing.
I shrug. “It’s not a big deal. Has it been a busy morning?”
His blue eyes skate to mine like they do whenever I try for nonchalance. “Where you guys heading?”
I shuck a thumb toward Maggie. “This is my sister, Maggie. The one who’s been living in Nepal. I’m taking her out to the Sound today.”
Jake’s smile grows. “I’ve heard a lot about you. It’s nice to meet you.”
“You too.” Maggie says.
“Let me see if I can help Shannon.”
“Thanks. I owe you.”
“I’ll remind you of that,” he says, turning back into the coffee shop.
“He seems like your friendly next-door stalker,” Maggie says.
I roll my eyes. “Not even close. I’ve worked with him for two years.”
“So?”
“The letters just started.”
She shakes her head. “That means next to nothing.”
“He’s cool,” I tell her.
“That’s what people said about Ted Bundy, too.”
I maim her with another glare. “Not the same. Plus, we’re friends. If those letters are real, the author clearly doesn’t like me.”
Shannon appears a few minutes later with two drink trays and three bags of food. “You seemed a little unsure about what your brother wanted, so I packed some extra stuff,” she says as way of explanation as she passes the bags to me.
“Hold up,” Jake says from behind her. Shannon’s forced to shuffle back so he can move forward, handing me a large cup. “In case your order wasn’t…” his words trail off as he glances toward Shannon still hovering nearby. “And I packed you guys some water and bagels in case you need something besides sugar.”
“Does anyone really need anything besides sugar?” I ask, taking the contents from him.
He grins. “Don’t fall off the boat.”
“Sound advice. Don’t let Shannon take orders from any college football players.”
His eyes crinkle with silent laughter. “See you tomorrow. Nice to meet you, Maggie.”
Maggie sits forward, flashing the paper crane. “Hey, have you ever seen these?”
Jake’s eyebrows lift marginally. “Sure. They’re origami or something, right?”
“You know how to make them?” she asks.
He chuckles softly before shaking his head. “You guys making them?”
“No,” I interject. “She’s just caffeine deprived. Jet lag and all that.” I glare in her direction, silencing her. “I’ll see you later, Jake.”
Jake lifts a hand to wave as I drive forward.
“You need to remove detective off your list of possible careers, because that was so bad, Captain Obvious.”
“I wasn’t trying to be discreet. I wanted to let him know that I was onto him.”
“It wasn’t Jake. Trust me.”
“I got it,” she says, carefully unfolding the last corner to reveal a series of words that look like they were trying to cleanse themselves from the soggy page.
“What does it say?” I ask when she remains silent too long.
“This is creepy shit,” she says.
“You’re probably reading it with the wrong tone. If you change it and think of it as a joke, it won’t be creepy.”
“Your smiles feel like lies. I thought we understood each other, and now nothing makes sense. We can get past this. Overcome the deceit you bury around yourself like a moat. I’ll do it. I’ll do it for you. I’ll do it for him. I’d do anything for him.”
I want to assure her it’s a joke, remind her again that it’s her serious tone that make the words sound so cryptic, but the words to refute the point dive into the deep end of reasoning. Maggie reads it again before lifting the other letter, reading them both silently while I pull into the marina, spotting Pax’s car.
“Who’s him? Derek?”
“I have no idea. Like, two people knew we were going out.”
“Maybe he told someone?”
“Can we not tell Pax?”
“We need to tell the police,” Maggie says.
I quickly shake my head. “What if it really is a prank?”
“What if it’s not? Stalkers are real, Rae. And they get obsessive and crazy. What if he’s following you?”
A loud knock on my window makes both of us jump.
“Wow. Jumpy much?” Pax asks, bending at the waist to look in my window.
I pull in a deep breath, trying to even my erratic heartbeat as Pax chuckles. “You guys jumped like a mile.”
Maggie swings her door open before I can plead my case again. “We have a problem,” she says.
26
“If you’re going to try and convince me to stop eating beef again, I have to cut you off now, because it’s not going to happen.”
I climb out of the car, watching as Caleb appears from the passenger side of Paxton’s car. I wait with bated breath for one of the back doors to open, for Lincoln to appear.
He doesn’t.
I knew he wouldn’t. I expected him not to come.
Yet, him meeting that expectation hurts nearly as much as holding it.
My gaze skitters to Maggie, catching her reaction to Paxton’s joke. Her lips are turned down as she shakes her head once. My thoughts scatter, trying to recall when my sister transformed into an adult. Being seven years older than me, she’s always looked mature in my eyes, but that childish glow that always sparked humor in her eyes is absent, replaced with an intensity the past two years of living in a third-world country and fighting a political and moral war like it’s hers to win has transformed her into an adult.
An engine ru
mbles, stealing my attention. A black truck slides into the spot next to me. Excitement climbs in my chest, my breath catching as my heart beats too fast and hard like I’m on a roller coaster and have just lost sight of the tracks, knowing I’m about to plummet. The engine cuts and Lincoln appears from the driver’s seat, a backward hat concealing his dark hair and a pair of aviator sunglasses providing another layer of protection from his emotions.
“What’s up!” Arlo calls, exiting from the passenger side, ambling over to us like a puppy, excited to greet us.
Maggie extends the letters to Pax. “It’s serious,” she says, before turning and introducing herself to Arlo.
Pax’s brow furrows, looking to me for direction before glancing at the letters.
“I think it’s a joke,” I explain. “Some stupid prank.”
I can’t tell if he hears me, though, because he’s reading the letters, his attention shifting between the pages before snapping to me. “What are these? Where did you get them?”
Maggie exchanges a silent look that rings an ‘I told you so.’
“They were left on my car.”
“When?” His voice is verging on abrupt.
“This was from last night,” Maggie says, pointing at the soggy letter, the page folding in on itself like a limp spaghetti noodle. “While she was at home.”
Pax blows out a long breath as Caleb leans over his shoulder, reading the letters before looking at me with raised brows.
“What’s going on?” Lincoln appears beside Pax, pushing his sunglasses atop his head, his presence calling me like the pull of the sun. The desire to soak in each detail of him has me looking from the thick fringe of sooty lashes shielding his dark eyes to the gentle dip above his perfectly shaped lips which bring on an entire onslaught of thoughts and memories that twist and tangle until I’m caught swimming upstream as I try to focus on the conversation while taking in the wide expanse of his chest.
Pax’s eyes cut to me. “You don’t know who they’re from?”
Lincoln plucks the letters from Pax, reading them too quickly before his intense gaze is on me. A warning bell erupts in my head, recognizing the doubt in his gaze that makes me feel even more inferior for having to discuss this new foreign situation that I don’t want to stick a toe inside, let alone open the doors for everyone else to peer around. “Where did you find them?”
“My windshield.”
“They were folded as paper cranes,” Maggie adds.
Lincoln pulls his chin back. “Like the one you guys found a few weeks ago at that house party?”
I nod, pointing the letter with brown frayed edges from having been stepped on. “Maggie found it on the floorboard. I’d forgotten all about it,” I add, feeling it necessary to explain why I still had it.
“Are there more?” Lincoln asks.
“A few.”
“How many?” Pax asks.
A section of my thoughts has been sequestered to this question upon Maggie discovering the contents were far less innocent than I’d ever suspected. “I don’t know? Maybe three? Four? I don’t remember.”
“How do you not remember?” Pax asks, anger stripping his calm demeanor.
“I didn’t realize they were letters. I thought they were just… I didn’t know what they were.” Reflection has me realizing I was naïve to not have considered they meant something. I think I knew, understood it that afternoon Poppy came over and discovered one on our front porch. I just didn’t want to, or maybe I’d hoped it meant something good rather than a potential threat.
“Are they always on your car?” Caleb asks, his voice the opposite of Paxton’s, composed and clear. He’s studying to work in criminal forensics and has been obsessed with everything dealing with the inner workings of people’s minds and intentions.
“One was on the front doorstep and one was on the counter at the coffee shop last week.”
“Okay.” Caleb’s voice is still level, but my answer has him lifting a shoulder and taking a fleeting glance around the parking lot. “Has anyone asked you out recently? Someone you turned down?”
I shake my head. “No.”
“It could have been anything,” Caleb continues. “Maybe coffee? A study group? Anything?”
“I’ve been so busy…” I shake my head, trying to recall all the conversations I’ve held in the past several weeks that have resulted in me declining an offer.
“What are you thinking?” Pax asks, looking at Caleb, who’s scanning over the letters once more.
“It’s a stalker,” Maggie answers, stepping forward so she’s at my side. “She’s being stalked.”
The word sits in my thoughts, refusing to fit into any of the patterns or scenarios I’ve constructed.
“What?” Pax swings his head from Lincoln to Caleb, looking at his long-time friend to dispute the idea, just as I am.
“It’s not a stalker,” I say.
Caleb rubs his lips together, taking too long to meet our inquiring stares. “It may not be a big deal. Not all stalkers are dangerous.”
Pax blinks hard and fast, like the sequence of words doesn’t fit together, and he’s working to find a proper arrangement for them. “Stalkers aren’t all dangerous?” His tone turns belligerent.
“How do we know if he’s dangerous?” Maggie asks.
“He?” I ask. “This is definitely a she.”
Caleb scrunches his nose, like he knows we won’t like his answer. “It could be a male or a female. Typically, men tend to be stalkers, but the author talks about a guy. It could be Paxton? At this point though, there’s not much we can do but wait.”
“What?” Lincoln snaps. “You’re telling me we just have to wait and see?”
Caleb lifts a shoulder. “They may expose themselves—they might have already, and Rae just wasn’t paying attention. We have to wait and see. The person might get bored or lose interest. They might try talking to you. They could try calling. It’s tough to say. We don’t have much to go on to classify their behavioral traits. Regardless, you need to let everyone know. It might spook them and show you’re not interested.”
“You want me to tell everyone that I’m being stalked?” I ask, considering this to be like telling everyone I might win the lottery one day—hypothetical and crazy.
“You have to,” Maggie insists. “People need to be paying attention and watching out for you and whoever this is.”
“They’re contacting you, which is good,” Caleb adds. “Predatory stalkers are technically the greatest threat, and they don’t generally reach out to their victims.”
“You’re telling us there are safe stalkers?” Pax’s voice drips with sarcasm and accusation, anger bristling from his bunched shoulders and balled fists.
“I’m saying not all stalkers pose a physical threat,” Caleb clarifies.
“Could it be a joke?” I interject. “A prank from someone?”
“It could, but…” Caleb starts.
“But what?” Lincoln asks.
“Obviously, I’m not a qualified expert,” Caleb says. “But, I’d consider this second letter as a threat. They mention lies and deceit, which means they’re feeling betrayed by you.”
“Your date yesterday,” Maggie says.
Caleb’s eyes flash to hers. “In my unqualified opinion, I’d wager they know about it.”
“What do we do?” Pax asks.
“Tell everyone,” Caleb repeats. “We should file a police report, tell her professors, people she works with, friends, family, everyone who can help keep an eye on things.”
“What if we just ignore whoever it is? If they don’t have the satisfaction of a reaction, maybe they’ll just move on,” I suggest.
“It doesn’t work like that,” Maggie says.
“What if we leave a note for whoever it is?” Arlo asks. “We tell him or her to move on, or they’ll regret it.”
Caleb quickly shakes his head. “You don’t want to respond. That gives them power. It’s better to pretend you don�
��t even know the cranes are letters. Don’t give a reaction. And, if you have the other letters, we should look at them. You need to keep them. The police will want to see them.”
“Profile him,” Lincoln says, looking at Caleb.
Caleb shakes his head again. “I can’t.”
“Try. Just give us some basics. Is it someone she knows? Are they old? Young? An ex-boyfriend?”
My thoughts race, cycling through the descriptions Lincoln fires one after the other.
“Men tend to stalk more than women, generally speaking, they’re in their thirties. He might be socially awkward.”
“That’s it?” Lincoln asks.
Caleb shrugs. “This isn’t enough to construct a profile.”
Lincoln works his jaw, his gaze crossing over the parking lot, tripping over me before stopping at me, an unreadable expression darkening his features.
Pax blows out a long breath. “Mother fucker.” He twists his neck, seeking a release from the obvious tension. “I’m going to fuck this asshole up.”
“This is why you had to tell him,” Maggie says.
Pax rocks back on his heels. “You weren’t going to tell me?” His accusation lands on me, full force.
“I don’t want this to interfere with everyone’s lives. We don’t even know what it means. No one’s bothered me. It’s just these stupid cranes that show up. I’m still not fully convinced it’s not a prank.”
“We should go. We should go to the police,” Pax says.
Seagulls cry overhead, their wings outstretched as they watch us, waiting to see if we have any food. “What about the boat?”
“You have a stalker. Who cares about the fucking boat!” Pax’s reaction is fast and loud, emotions and fear making his blue eyes unfamiliar as I maim an accusing glare at him.
Maggie steps forward. “We should still go out. No one knew we were going out, and we can’t let this control her life. We just have to set up precautions. There’s six of us. Safety in numbers.”
Pax glances at Caleb. “This is a terrible idea.”
Caleb shrugs in response. “Not really.”
“Pax is right. We need to get the police involved,” Lincoln says.
“We will,” Maggie says. “When we get back.” She looks at me, her eyes unwavering as she places a hand on my arm. “Let’s grab the food, and we’ll get out there.”
