Stalking Season

by Sandra Robbins

  His eyes grew wide for a moment, and then he threw back his head and laughed. When he’d quit shaking, he smiled at her. “I’ll try, but old habits are hard to break. Here in the South we use those terms out of respect a lot.” He studied her for a moment. “What part of the country are you visiting the Smokies from?”

  “Actually, I’m not visiting. I just moved here.”

  “You did? What brought you to this area?”

  “I—I came to perform at the Smoky Mountain Wild West Show.”

  His eyebrows arched. “You’re a cowgirl?”

  She looked down at the jeans, Western-styled shirt and boots she was wearing, and a grin pulled at her lips. “Well,” she said, “dressed like this I doubt anybody would mistake me for a Southern belle.”

  His face warmed, and he swallowed. “I guess you’re right, but I have to say you’re pretty enough to be one.” He bit down on his tongue and struggled to think of something to say that would ease his embarrassment. “I’m not saying that cowgirls aren’t pretty. I’m just saying...” He paused, and her grin grew larger. After a moment he smiled, too. “I guess you know what I’m saying,” he finally said.

  “I do, and thank you for the compliment.”

  He looked down at the information he’d written when he first talked to her. “So your name is Cheyenne Cassidy, you’ve just moved to this area and you think someone wants to kill you. Are you okay with going to the station to give me your statement?”

  She nodded. “I am. My truck is parked over there. Should I follow you?”

  “No. You’re still a bit shaken. Why don’t you ride with me? I’ll bring you back here when we’re finished.”

  She hesitated a moment before she smiled. “Okay, Deputy Conrad. I can do that.”

  He opened the passenger-side door of his car and she climbed in. Then he walked around, got in behind the steering wheel and drove out of the parking lot into the heavy traffic that was clogging the main street in town today. He hadn’t seen this many tourists since the summer, but he was glad they had come. The local economy could always use the boost from sales, and Christmas was one of the busiest times of the year for the shops and attractions in this area.

  He came to a stop at a red light, and as the car idled, he found his thoughts returning to the young woman sitting silently beside him. He’d heard the expression “deer in the headlights” all his life and had experienced having to swerve around a big buck in the middle of a mountain road several times, but now he really knew what it meant.

  When she had run in front of his car, she had looked frightened, more like terrified, and her big brown eyes had stood out in her pale face. She’d dashed off the sidewalk as if she was being pursued by somebody and straight into the path of his car. And now he knew why. She said someone wanted to kill her, and he needed to find out why she thought that. But first he needed to put her at ease and convince her she could trust him.

  He cleared his throat. “So, you’re new to the Wild West show. I was there last night, but I don’t remember seeing you. Did you perform?”

  She shook her head. “I was there, but I didn’t perform. I just helped out behind the scenes. Tonight is my debut. I’m a trick rider.”

  Her words shocked him, and he glanced at her. “Wow!” he exclaimed. “When I was in college, my roommate’s girlfriend was a trick rider. We used to go watch her perform a lot, so I know it’s really dangerous.”

  “It can be if you’re not careful and if you don’t have a well-trained horse. I’ve had my horse, Patches, ever since he was a colt, and we know each other well.” Then to his surprise she said, “Maybe you can come watch us perform sometime, Deputy Conrad.”

  He smiled. “I’ll do that. Sometime.”

  She didn’t say anything for a moment, and then she spoke in such a soft voice that he almost missed what she was saying. “Thank you, Deputy Conrad, for everything. I appreciate your help today.”

  “Luke,” he said. “Call me Luke. And it was my pleasure, Cheyenne.”

  “I was so scared when I ran out of that store. If I hadn’t literally run into you, I don’t know what I would have done.”

  He started to ask what she meant, but she turned her head and stared out the window. The light turned green, and he moved forward in the line of traffic. Two blocks later he turned right and pulled into the parking lot of the sheriff’s department.

  When he’d pulled to a stop, she turned to stare at him. The way she bit down on her lip, and the way her eyes sparkled with unshed tears, made his heartbeat race. Something was terribly wrong. He didn’t know what it was yet, but there was one thing he did know: Cheyenne Cassidy was scared, and he had to find out why her face had the same terrified look as when he’d first seen her through the windshield of his car.

  “This is the sheriff’s office,” he said, “and I promise you we’ll do everything we can to put you at ease.”

  She took a deep breath and nodded. “Then it will be the first time I’ll feel that way in two years.”

  He started to ask her what she meant, but she was already climbing from the car. He opened his door, jumped out and caught up to her when she rounded the front of the vehicle. “I’m sure everything’s going to be okay.”

  She looked up at him for a moment and then shook her head. “My parents did, too, and now they’re dead.”

  Before he could respond, she walked past him and pulled open the door to the building. He didn’t move for a moment and then strode after her. His mind whirled with all the things she’d said since they’d met. Something told him he was about to hear a story that was different from anything he’d experienced since becoming a deputy in this small mountain community.

  TWO

  Cheyenne stepped inside the building and stopped as Luke walked up beside her. A dispatcher at a desk in the entry looked up from her computer and smiled as they entered. The woman pushed a lock of gray hair out of her eyes as her gaze swept over Cheyenne and came to rest on Luke.

  Her face lit up with a friendly smile. “Hi, Luke. You back for shift change?”

  Cheyenne looked up at the deputy and frowned. “You didn’t tell me you were about to go off duty. I don’t want to delay you. I can give my statement to another officer, and you can go on home.

  He shook his head. “It’s no big deal. We stay past our shift all the time if we’re trying to help someone in trouble.” He looked back at the woman behind the desk. “If Sheriff Whitman comes in, tell him I’m in the interrogation room taking a statement from Miss Cassidy. If he wants to join us, he can.”

  The woman leaned forward with her arms folded on her desk as she smiled at Cheyenne. “Cassidy? Are you the trick rider who’s staying with Dean and Gwen Harwell out at the Little Pigeon Ranch?”

  The question stunned Cheyenne, and her eyes widened. She’d been in town less than a week, and this woman already knew about her. Coming to the small resort town of Pigeon Forge had seemed like a good way to lose herself in all the tourists who poured through here each year, but perhaps she’d been wrong.

  Cheyenne swallowed before she spoke. “Yes. How did you know?”

  The woman waved her hand in dismissal. “This is really a small town, and all the locals know each other.”

  Luke frowned and placed his hand on Cheyenne’s elbow. “And Clara knows everybody’s business.” He pointed down the hall. “Our interrogation room is down here. Let’s go in there so we can talk.”

  Cheyenne looked over her shoulder as Luke guided her away from the desk. Clara had stood up and was watching them walk away. Her arms were crossed, and a smug smile pulled at her mouth. Cheyenne turned her attention back to Luke as he stopped and opened the door. “Here we are. Would you like something to drink before we begin? I can get you a soda from the vending machine or a cup of coffee, but I have to warn you that by this t
ime of afternoon the coffee is strong enough to make a spoon stand up in it.”

  Cheyenne smiled and shook her head. “No, thanks. I’m fine.”

  “Then go in and have a seat.”

  She stepped into the small room and surveyed the space. It looked very much like the interrogation rooms she saw on the TV detective show she watched. A table with four chairs sat near one corner of the room and a mirror that appeared to be built into the Sheetrock covered most of the wall opposite.

  Luke nudged her to the table and pulled out her chair, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the mirror. “I suppose that’s a two-way mirror. Is there someone on the other side watching us?”

  He shook his head. “No, but I can’t promise you there won’t be by the time we get through. If Sheriff Whitman comes in, he may go in there instead of disturbing us. I will tell you, however, that there is a camera in the corner, and it will be recording our conversation. Is that all right with you?”

  She shrugged. “I suppose so. Once I make a statement, it will on record anyway. This isn’t my first time to talk to a police officer.”

  Luke’s eyebrows arched. “Really? And when was the first time?”

  She sighed, closed her eyes and rubbed her hand across her forehead. “I suppose the best place to start is at the beginning—two years ago.”

  Luke opened a notepad and wrote something before he glanced back up at her. “Go on.”

  Cheyenne took a deep breath. “Well, we’ve already established the facts that I am Cheyenne Cassidy, I moved here a few weeks ago to become a trick rider with the Wild West show and, as Clara has let you know, I’m living at Little Pigeon Ranch.”

  A smile tugged at his mouth. “Clara is very good at her job, but she has a nose for news. She keeps up with everyone in town. Don’t take offense.”

  “I won’t. It just surprised me that she knew.” She settled back in her chair. “I moved to Pigeon Forge from Wyoming. My family raised horses on a ranch there, and my father coached the rodeo team at a college nearby. Ever since I can remember, my parents competed in rodeos. My mother did barrel racing and my father was a bronc rider. I started doing trick riding when I was young and began performing on the circuit with them when I was still in elementary school. I’ve been doing it ever since, until recently, when I decided to give it up.”

  “Why did you quit?”

  Cheyenne closed her eyes and let the memories she tried to keep at bay enter her mind. “About two years ago I started getting anonymous messages and flowers, always white roses, from a secret admirer. Everywhere I went I felt like I was being followed. Sometimes I would catch a glimpse of a man in the shadows, but he was smart enough not to let me ever see his face. At first his messages were filled with words of how much he loved me, but that all changed when I starting dating a cowboy on the rodeo circuit. Then they became threatening and filled with ultimatums.”

  “What kind of ultimatums?”

  “He’d write things telling me I was his and if I didn’t want something to happen to my boyfriend, I’d better break up with him.”

  Luke quit writing and looked up at her. “So what did you do?”

  Cheyenne’s shoulders sagged. “I broke up with him. I was about to have a nervous breakdown, but that didn’t stop him. He broke into our house several times when we were away. The last time he did, he completely destroyed my room. The only thing missing, however, was a music box my father had given me years before.”

  Luke glanced up at her and pursed his lips. “It sounds like he was following a pattern.”

  “What do you mean?” Cheyenne asked.

  “There are stages that stalkers progress through when they become obsessed with someone. The early stages include things like uncomfortable contact, intimidation and then threatening messages. Things begin to get out of hand when the stalker starts to destroy personal property.”

  Cheyenne’s eyes narrowed, and she nodded. “That’s exactly how it progressed over a period of two years, but the police could never catch him. Then six months ago my mother and father left for a rodeo, but I didn’t go. He’d sent me a note telling me that we were finally going to meet, and I was scared. I stayed with some friends. While my folks were at the rodeo, somebody broke into the trailer where they were sleeping and murdered both of them.”

  Luke’s lips clamped together and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “They were murdered?” he asked as if he couldn’t believe what she’d just said.

  “Yes.”

  “Did they find out who did it?”

  Cheyenne shook her head. “That’s still a subject for debate. The police suspected it was the man who’d been stalking me because the killer left a note saying that their deaths were my punishment because I’d been unfaithful to him and hadn’t come to meet him. There were white roses scattered over my parents’ bodies.”

  “So your stalker killed your parents.”

  “That’s what the police thought. A few days after the murder, they found the body of Clint Shelton, a rodeo worker, in his truck. He’d left a note saying he couldn’t live with himself any longer, that he’d killed my parents because I had rejected him.”

  “You don’t sound like you’re convinced this Shelton guy did it.”

  She shook her head. “It just never made sense to me. I barely knew Clint. He was one of the best hazers in the business, but we weren’t friends. He was engaged to be married, so I couldn’t understand why he would become fixated on me.”

  “But the police disagreed?”

  “Yes. The detective who was in charge of the case was eager to close it, and he took the suicide note as proof that Clint was the killer. There was no DNA or any physical evidence that put him at the scene, though.”

  Luke sat back in his chair a moment and stared at her as he tapped the pen he held on the desk. “Wow, I can’t believe all this. You’ve been through a terrible time.”

  Cheyenne nodded. “Yes, I have. I tried to stay on the rodeo circuit, but after a few months I knew it would never be the same without my parents. That’s when Bill Johnson, who owns the Wild West show, contacted me. He was a friend of my father’s. In fact, his son Trace was on the rodeo team my father coached, and he has always been a close friend of mine. They wanted to help me put all my bad memories behind, so they offered me a job. Trace got it arranged for me to live out at Dean and Gwen’s ranch.”

  After a moment Luke leaned forward and tilted his head to one side. “So I suppose that brings us to today. What happened that made you run into traffic without looking at where you were going?”

  A chill ran up Cheyenne’s back as she recalled the incident inside the store. Then she began to speak, and the words poured out of her. She told him of the video of the stolen music box, and the cryptic text messages and phone call that told her he was going to give her one more chance to be with him.

  “He accused me of being the reason my parents were dead, that I had turned him into a killer. But he said that he’d forgiven me and was going to give me one more chance to be with him.” She blinked back tears. “The way he said it made me think that if I rejected him again I would pay for it. That sounds like a death threat to me.”

  Luke nodded. “It does to me, too. I think you should take this warning seriously.”

  She held up her hands in despair. “But what can I do? He’s eluded everybody for the last two years. I don’t want to move again to try and hide from him. I want this nightmare to be out of my life.”

  “I understand,” Luke said, “and our department will do everything we can to make sure you’re protected. I think you should think about postponing your debut at the Wild West show until we know more about what’s going on.”

  Cheyenne shook her head. “I can’t do that. Bill has advertised that Cheyenne Cassidy, three-time women’s winner in the International
Trick Riding Competition, will be making her debut appearance. He’s almost sold out for tonight’s performance, so I can’t let him down.”

  “Still,” Luke began, “I think—”

  She pushed to her feet and clasped her hands in front of her. “I know you’re trying to help, and I appreciate it. But I need to get through tonight and then decide what I’m going to do.”

  He stared at her for a moment as if he was going to argue. Then he let out a deep breath and pushed to his feet. “Then let me suggest that you stay close to someone you know. Don’t be alone at any time, and as soon as the show is finished, go home.”

  “I can do that.”

  “Good. Then I’ll come by Little Pigeon Ranch tomorrow and check on you.”

  Neither one of them said anything for a few minutes as they stared at each other. Then Cheyenne stuck out her hand and tried to smile. “Thank you, Deputy Conrad, for being so nice to me today. I appreciate your concern, and I promise I’ll be very aware of my surroundings.”

  His fingers wrapped around hers and he smiled. “I thought you were going to call me Luke.”

  Her face grew warm and she tugged her hand loose. “Okay. Luke it is.”

  “I’ll drop by the ranch tomorrow and see how things are going with you. In the meantime, don’t hesitate to call if you need me.” He pulled his card from his pocket and handed it to her. “My number’s on there, and you can call me anytime.”

  “Thank you. I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Luke cleared his throat and held out his hand toward the door. “Now if you’re ready, I’ll drive you back to your truck.”

  A slight frown pulled at her forehead. “Don’t you need to clock out of your shift? I can wait until you get done.”

  “I’ll come back and do that after I deliver you to your truck,”

  “Very well. Let’s go so you can get back. I’m afraid I’ve already delayed you long enough,” she said as she headed toward the door.