Night Stalker

by Shirlee McCoy

  The fact was, Charlotte had no reason to believe the Night Stalker knew who she was, where she lived or if she’d survived. Based on what she’d learned from Wren and Adam, she thought it was more likely that he’d gone on his merry way and was currently searching for a new victim somewhere far from Whisper Lake.

  Of course, she wasn’t law enforcement. She was just someone who’d been in the wrong place at the right time. Someone who’d gotten mixed up in something that had almost gotten her killed. She could be very wrong in her thinking. It was possible the serial killer did know who she was and where she lived. It was also possible that he planned to pay her back for ruining his plans to abduct his tenth victim.

  She frowned. Maybe she did want to leave town for a while, go into hiding, let the FBI protect her.

  Maybe.

  But she needed to think about it, and the best place to do that was home.

  She eased out of her hospital gown and into the loose-fitting jeans and sweater Bubbles had brought her. It took longer than it should have, and she was shaking when she finished, but she’d accomplished the task.

  Now all she had to do was get home.

  She thought about calling Bubbles and asking for a ride, but she didn’t like the idea of her elderly neighbor driving out to the hospital at midnight. Besides, Bubbles had been spending her days at the cottage, taking care of Clover and sending away friends who’d been wondering why Charlotte hadn’t shown up for meetings or training sessions. The FBI had coached her carefully, and Bubbles had told everyone who cared to know that Charlotte was on vacation. Unplanned. Spur of the moment. Just one of those things that young people did.

  That was plenty for a woman in her eighties to deal with. She didn’t need to be dragged out of bed at midnight to ride to Charlotte’s rescue. Besides, if the Night Stalker was still out there, Charlotte didn’t want Bubbles to be in his crosshairs.

  She shivered, her thoughts going back to that moment on the road. The bright headlights. The dark form. The woman dropping to the ground.

  The explosion of sound and of pain.

  She’d been assured that she was safe. That the Whisper Lake Sheriff’s Department was working with the state and federal police to keep her that way.

  She believed she was safe.

  But she was still afraid.

  “That doesn’t mean you’re staying here,” she muttered. “You’re going home. You’ll make decisions about whether to stick around once you’re there.”

  “Are you okay, Charlotte?” someone called from the other side of the closed door.

  Someone?

  Adam. She knew his voice like she knew her own. Even after all these years.

  “Charlotte?” he called again.

  “I’m fine,” she called back.

  “Were you talking to someone?” The doorknob turned, the door opened and he was there. Standing in the threshold, his dark gray eyes a shade darker than she remembered, his hair just a little shorter. His shoulders were broader, too. The twenty-four-year-old kid he’d been had grown into his lanky frame.

  “Just myself,” she admitted, turning away so she wouldn’t have to look into his eyes and see the concern and compassion there. Since they’d divorced, she hadn’t spent much time thinking about how the years would change him. She’d been too busy trying to forget what they’d once had.

  Now, though...

  Now she could see what time had done. He was the same, but better. Calmer. Steadier. More patient. More willing to listen.

  At night, when he thought she was sleeping, he’d sit in the recliner and read a leather-bound Bible, the thin pages rustling as he turned them. She’d wanted to ask him about that. She’d wanted to tell him about the church she’d joined and the comfort she’d found there. She’d kept silent, afraid to open doors that were better left shut. Her heart had been broken once. She wasn’t sure she’d survive having it broken again.

  “You still talk to yourself, huh?” She could hear his footsteps on the floor as he walked toward her, but she still wouldn’t meet his eyes.

  “Old habits are hard to break.” She grabbed the bag of clothes and toiletries Bubbles had brought, wincing as the healing wound in her chest pulled tight.

  “Let me.” He took it from her hand, his fingers grazing her knuckles, his touch as familiar as sunrise. She could have leaned into it if she’d wanted to, leaned into him and let all the things that used to be wash over them. But they’d been divorced for longer than they’d been married. They were nothing more than strangers who had once known each other.

  If she remembered that, she’d be just fine.

  “Thanks.”

  “You look like you’re planning to go somewhere,” he commented as she grabbed her purse from the table beside the bed. Bubbles had brought that, too.

  “I am.”

  “That’s not a good idea, Charlotte.”

  “I don’t see why not.” She reached for a sheet of paper that lay on the table, the flowery stationery covered with a scrawled thank-you note from Bethany Andrews. Wren had delivered it in a plain white envelope. No hint of where it had come from or who had sent it. Charlotte had read the note several times already, the ER nurse’s heartfelt thank-you reminding her that everything she’d been through had been worth it. Hopefully, they’d have a chance to meet face-to-face one day. She had a feeling she’d get along well with Bethany. She sounded like a sweet young woman.

  Young? According to Wren, Bethany was twenty-five. Just three years younger than Charlotte. They’d attended Whisper Lake High School together for one year. Charlotte had ended her senior year six months pregnant, and she didn’t remember much of her last year of high school except for the fact that she’d worn baggy shirts and oversize dresses, hoping to hide her growing belly.

  Needless to say, she didn’t remember Bethany.

  She folded the note and slid it into her pocket, making the mistake of meeting Adam’s eyes. He was watching, his shoulder against the wall, his expression neutral.

  Whatever he was thinking, he hid it well.

  “What?” she asked, breaking the silence because it felt too thick, too heavy and too filled with words that should have been said years ago.

  “You’re an intelligent woman, Charlotte. I’m sure you know exactly why leaving the hospital isn’t a good idea.”

  “The Night Stalker doesn’t know who I am. He doesn’t know where I live, and as far as law enforcement can tell, he left town and hasn’t returned.”

  “Law enforcement has no idea who he is or where he lives. For all anyone knows, he’s your next-door neighbor.”

  “Bubbles is my only neighbor,” she pointed out.

  “I’m aware of that, Charlotte. We did live together for four and a half years.”

  She hadn’t needed the reminder.

  Sometimes when she couldn’t sleep, she’d think about how it had felt to have someone lying in bed beside her. She’d remember what it was like to be wrapped in a solid embrace, or to reach out in the middle of the night, knowing that someone would reach back.

  She missed that.

  She was honest enough with herself to admit it.

  “Wren said the Night Stalker probably hunted for his victims far away from home. If that’s the case, he doesn’t live anywhere near here,” she commented.

  “He changed his MO when he went after Bethany. He’s always taken women from large hospitals. This time, it’s different.”

  “That doesn’t mean he lives close by.”

  “It doesn’t mean that he doesn’t,” he pointed out.

  She grabbed the Bible that Bubbles had brought to the hospital. The leather cover was cracked with age, the pages thin, wrinkled and highlighted with pink and yellow and lime green. Charlotte’s grandmother had spent hours studying scripture. The Bible had been hers. In the years since Daniel�
�s death, Charlotte had pored through it, seeking comfort in the words her grandmother had highlighted years ago.

  She tucked it under her arm and reached for the slip-on shoes that Bubbles had set on a chair. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Adam.”

  “I want you to say that you’re going to follow the team’s plan.”

  “What plan? The one where I get on a private jet and travel to an unknown destination?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were you part of making it? Is that why you want me to agree to it?”

  “You know I’m on leave,” he said. “I have nothing to do with the plans that are made.”

  “I’m sure you’d like to be part of the decision-making process. You can go back to Boston and back to work,” she replied and felt like an ogre for it. Adam had been nothing but kind, and she’d done nothing but try to push him away.

  “No. I can’t. Not until I know you’re safe.”

  “I don’t need you to keep me safe,” she murmured, but her heart wasn’t in the words. They sounded hollow and sad and a little lonely.

  “I didn’t say you did. I said I need to know you are. We might be divorced, but I still care about you, Charlotte. That has never changed.”

  She dropped one of the shoes. It bounced across the floor and slid under the bed.

  “I’ll get it,” Adam said, grabbing her elbow when she bent to reach for it.

  His fingers were warm, his skin calloused, and she could feel his touch long after he released his grip. She rubbed the spot, trying to wipe away the warmth and the memories that filled her head. Cold nights. Hot fires. Long conversations as they lay side by side.

  He’d been her best friend.

  He’d known everything there was to know about her.

  And then he’d been gone.

  She swallowed down grief that she shouldn’t be feeling and whirled away, the quick movement making her light-headed.

  She grabbed the doorjamb, her fingers curving around cool wood.

  “You okay?” Adam asked, and she realized he had both of her shoes in his hand and was watching her.

  “Fine. Just anxious to get out of here.”

  “For the record,” he said, placing the shoes on the floor so she could slip into them, “I don’t approve.”

  “Your disapproval is noted.”

  “But you’re leaving anyway?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll get a wheelchair.” He gave in with a lot less of a fight than she’d expected.

  “I can walk.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  “I will.” She stepped toward the door, and he touched her arm. Not stopping her. Just offering support. Her breath caught, her heart skipping a beat. His lashes were still long, thick and curly, his skin deeply tanned. He had a faint scar on his left jaw, and a solemnness to his demeanor that had been missing when he’d been a young deputy sheriff, fresh-faced and eager to prove himself. She felt dizzy with the memories, or maybe from moving too much and too quickly.

  “On second thought,” she murmured, “a wheelchair might be good.”

  He slipped his arm around her waist and led her to the recliner. She was sitting in it before she realized what was happening, his jacket settled around her, the scent of his cologne filling her nose.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. He was looking into her eyes, and she was looking into his, and for a moment, there was nothing between them. No past. No pain. No heartache. They were simply two friends taking care of each other the same way they had since the first day they’d met.

  He backed away, turning on his heels and striding from the room. Minutes later, he wheeled the chair in, helping her settle into it with the same quick efficient manner as any of the nurses or orderlies would have.

  Whatever had been there was gone.

  They were strangers again, and she told herself she was fine with it.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked, and she nodded.

  “Clover has been alone for eight nights. That’s seven too many.”

  “He’s a dog,” he pointed out. “And Bubbles has been spending every day with him.”

  “He’s family,” she corrected.

  He nodded, his dark eyes tracing the curve of her cheek and jaw. She could feel it like a physical touch.

  Maybe they weren’t so much like strangers, after all.

  She frowned, relieved when he walked around to the back of the wheelchair and rolled her into the hall.

  “One of my colleagues is waiting for us at the service entrance. We figured taking you out that way would attract a lot less attention than wheeling you through the lobby,” he said. “You remember meeting Special Agent River Callahan?”

  “Blond hair, blue eyes, nice smile?”

  “I never paid much attention to the smile, but the other two are accurate. He and Wren are accompanying us to your place. They’ll be staying there until you make a decision about protective custody.”

  “I don’t remember agreeing to that.”

  “You didn’t.” His quick blunt response left no room for argument.

  Not that she cared about that.

  She could have argued.

  She could have listed a dozen reasons why she didn’t want or need federal officers in her house. Except that she wasn’t a hundred percent sure she didn’t need them.

  She thought she didn’t.

  She hoped she didn’t.

  But if the Night Stalker really did live somewhere nearby, he might be someone she knew, someone who’d recognized her.

  Someone who wanted to make sure that she didn’t recognize him.

  “Okay,” she said.

  “That was easy,” he responded.

  “You expected me to argue?”

  “You’re leaving the hospital against the advice of law enforcement,” he pointed out, “so that seemed like a reasonable assumption.”

  “I’m tired of the hospital,” she replied. “But I’m still really fond of being alive. If there’s any chance the Night Stalker knows who I am—”

  “We’ve been very careful about what information is released to the press.”

  “That doesn’t mean much in a small town.”

  He didn’t respond as he rolled her out into the hall.

  She hadn’t expected him to.

  He might have moved to Boston, joined the FBI, lived the high-stress busy life he’d always wanted, but he’d been born and raised in Whisper Lake. He knew how small towns worked, how information traveled over backyard fences and across church pews and made its way through the entire population so quickly it was nearly impossible to stop it. Regional papers had gotten wind of the Night Stalker’s attempted kidnapping. They’d been fed information from anonymous sources who’d been happy to tell them that a woman had been shot saving a nurse from the serial killer. Charlotte had seen the story running on local and national television. It had been front-page news for a week, and there was no doubt that Whisper Lake was buzzing with it.

  People who lived there knew the police had responded to a shooting near the lake. They knew there’d been two women at the scene. They knew everything except for the fact that Charlotte had been involved.

  She wanted to keep it that way.

  They reached the nurse’s desk and the bank of elevators across from it. Adam passed both.

  “Where are we going?” she asked, suddenly wondering if her escape from the hospital had seemed too easy because it was too easy.

  Maybe Adam had his own plans.

  Plans that didn’t include letting her return to the cottage.

  “To the freight elevator,” he replied, turning down a quiet corridor that led deeper into the hospital.

  “We are going home, right?” she
asked as he stopped at the oversize elevator and tapped the call button.

  “Yes.”

  “If you don’t, I’ll find a way to get there myself.”

  He leaned down, his lips so close to her ear, she thought she could feel their warmth. “I was a lot of things when we were married, Charlotte, but I was never a liar.”

  The doors slid open and he wheeled her into the cavernous space.

  He didn’t speak again, and she couldn’t.

  All the words were caught in her throat, a million memories of Adam and what he’d meant to her flitting through her brain and lodging in her heart.

  When the doors slid open again, she inhaled deeply, the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding puffing out into the chilly basement air. This part of the hospital wasn’t one visitors normally saw. The cement floor was old and paint-spattered, track marks from thousands of carts being wheeled through etched into it. Up ahead, what looked like a wide garage door was illuminated by a few dim overhead lights.

  A man waited there, his suit jacket crisp and neat, his expression grim. He had a holster beneath his sports coat. She’d seen it and him a lot during her hospital stay. He was a member of the FBI’s Special Crimes Unit. He was also quiet, reserved and pointed in his questions. No matter how many times she answered, no matter what she said to him, she always had the idea that River Callahan didn’t believe her.

  He nodded as Adam wheeled her closer, pressing a button so the door rose. Beyond it, moonlight cast long shadows across a nearly empty lot. Like so many other places in Whisper Lake, the hospital was bordered by state land, the edge of a national forest just beyond the lot.

  She couldn’t take her eyes off the trees, off the circles of streetlights that illuminated the bare branches of old sycamores. Someone could be standing in the shadows, pointing a gun in her direction. She wouldn’t know it until it was too late, until the bullet had already flown and she was lying on the ground, bleeding to death.

  “It’s okay,” Adam said quietly as he pushed the wheelchair down a long ramp. “We’ve been keeping an eye on the area since you arrived. If anyone were out here, we’d know it.”