Secret Stalker

by LENA DIAZ,

  The sound of a powerful engine had her looking in her rearview mirror again. A shiny black four-by-four pickup was coming up fast behind her. And sitting in the driver’s seat was an achingly familiar silhouette.

  Max Remington.

  Chapter Five

  Normally the ride from the grocery store to her mother’s house would have taken Bex twenty-five minutes. Today, with Max riding her bumper, it took half that. She barreled into the driveway on the left side of the house and slammed her brakes. Max braked hard behind her, narrowly missing her car.

  He hopped out of his pickup and stalked up to her window before she’d even cut her engine.

  “Get out.”

  Even with the window rolled up, she could hear the anger vibrating in his deep voice.

  “Go away.”

  He shook his head. “Open the door, Bex.”

  She gave him a very unladylike gesture and reached for the gearshift, fully intending to drive across the lawn back to the road.

  “Gonna run again, Bex?” he taunted. “You’re good at that.”

  She stiffened.

  “You drove twenty miles over the speed limit. I can arrest you for that.”

  “There was a maniac following me. I was in fear for my life.”

  If his jaw tightened any more his teeth would probably break.

  A long breath huffed out of her as her anger drained away. This wasn’t how she wanted things between the two of them. She’d blindsided him by coming back and deserved a little consideration. He’d also saved her life today. Repaying him by pushing his buttons and making his job difficult wasn’t right. She cut the engine, grabbed her purse and waited.

  Looking suspicious at her sudden change of heart, he seemed to almost reluctantly step back, just enough for her to open the door and get out of her car.

  As she headed toward the wide, covered front porch than ran the width of the cottage, he was hot on her heels, so close she could feel his body heat against her back. And just like that, her skin prickled with awareness and her belly tightened, her body’s natural response to Max being that close.

  She couldn’t believe he still had this kind of impact on her, after all these years and after everything that had happened. It was irritating, and made it really hard to keep her raw emotions at bay.

  “You don’t have to hang so close,” she told him as she climbed the steps.

  “Just making sure you don’t run again,” he taunted.

  She stopped, then whirled around to face him. But he was too close. She had to climb two more steps to be able to meet his gaze without craning her head back.

  “Was that supposed to be funny?” she demanded.

  “Not even a little bit.”

  He arched a brow, daring her to bring up the past, to go down a road she had no intention of traveling. Down that road lay too much hurt. And danger. For both of them.

  She let out a pent-up breath and turned around, climbing the rest of the steps and crossing the wide porch. After unlocking the front door, she turned the knob. And suddenly he was pushing past her into the living room.

  “Please, won’t you come in,” she muttered behind him, closing the door and flipping the dead bolt.

  He did a quick turn around the room, glancing through doorways into the kitchen, the hall, the bathroom, all while keeping his hand on his holster. She supposed it was second nature to do things like that, the instincts of a cop automatically checking the security when they went anywhere.

  When he returned to the entry, he eyed the dead bolt but didn’t say the obvious—that she’d never have locked a door when she was growing up here. Most people in Destiny didn’t lock their doors. Bex’s mother certainly hadn’t. The dead bolt had been frozen when Bex had arrived and she’d had to spray it with oil to get it to work.

  Feeling silly now for having locked it, she flipped the bolt again, leaving the door unsecured, even though her big city instincts had her fingers itching to flip the bolt.

  For a man who’d been all bent out of shape about wanting to talk to her, Max didn’t seem to be in any kind of hurry to talk now. Instead, he strolled around the room, examining the stacks of boxes containing her mother’s things, reading the labels on each one. When he reached the fireplace, he stared in silence at the dark square above it where a picture of the two of them from their senior prom used to hang. She expected him to ask her what she’d done with it, perhaps in a sarcastic or accusing tone. She’d die before she told him that she’d carefully packed it away and put it in a box to go back home with her to Knoxville. But he didn’t ask.

  Instead, he turned around and headed toward the archway that led into the eat-in kitchen on the front left side of the house.

  “Got any coffee? I sure could use some even though it’s inching toward dinnertime now,” he said.

  She frowned and hurried after him. “I thought you wanted to interview me about what happened at the store? Show me some pictures or something?”

  He hesitated, then pulled his phone out. A moment later, he flipped through pictures of five men, holding each one up for her.

  “Recognize any of them?”

  “No. Are those the gunmen?”

  He didn’t answer, just put his phone back in his pocket. After opening the cabinet to the right of the sink, he took down two coffee cups, acting just as familiar and comfortable with the house as he’d been as a teenager. As if the years between had never happened.

  A few minutes later he had the old-fashioned coffeemaker spitting and gurgling a thin stream of dark coffee into a carafe.

  “Cream and sugar still?” He took the creamer out of the refrigerator, which Bex had topped off just this morning, and grabbed the sugar bowl from the kitchen table.

  “Yes. Still.” She pulled out one of the chairs and plopped down. “I’m surprised you remember where Mom kept everything.”

  His lips thinned. “I practically lived here in high school. Your mom was like a second mom to me. We kept in touch. I didn’t write her out of my life just because you wrote me out of yours.”

  She sucked in a breath, old hurts washing over her. The last time she’d seen Max suddenly felt just as fresh and painful as it had the first time around—as if all the years in between had never happened. She should apologize, explain. He deserved that. But how could she?

  Especially now that he was a cop.

  He set the cup of creamy white coffee in front of her and a cup of strong, black coffee in front of himself before finally sitting across from her.

  He rubbed his neck and let out a deep sigh, stretching his long legs out in front of him. He looked so tired, as if the weight of everything that had happened today had drained the fight right out of him.

  “Why did you come back, Bex? After all these years, why come back at all? It’s not like you went to the memorial service.”

  She almost choked on the coffee she’d just sipped. She forced the now tasteless liquid down her throat and shoved the cup away. She rose from her chair, fully intending to order him to leave.

  “Bex. Please. I’m not trying to fight. I really want to know.” He watched her intently, waiting for her to make the decision.

  She drew a deep breath then sat down again. “I had a private funeral for her in...outside Destiny.”

  He nodded. “I figured. Which is kind of my point. Why come back? You didn’t have to. You could handle everything remotely. From wherever you live now.”

  Silence filled the room, his unasked questions hanging between them. Where did she live? Where had she gone? Where would she go once she left again?

  She considered telling him. It wasn’t exactly a big secret anymore, as it had been when she’d fled. Privacy was a fantasy these days. Finding someone was as easy as doing a search online, even if they’d changed
their name—which she hadn’t done.

  If Max really wanted to find her, he could. Especially as a police officer. He’d be able to track her down. And yet, all these years, he’d never once tried to find her. Had never walked up to her condo or visited her little shop, asking for answers. So she wasn’t going to give them now.

  “I needed to settle her estate, go through her things, pack up the house.”

  He didn’t say anything, just waited.

  She glanced around the kitchen, at the fading yellow drapes hanging above the sink. The horrible red-rooster wallpaper on the wall above the stove, wallpaper that she’d hated while growing up here but that somehow seemed perfect now.

  She smoothed her fingers against the faded, chipped laminate-topped table. Her mother had refused to let Bex replace it with one of the gorgeous antiques from her store. Mom had insisted she loved the cheap, worn table. But Bex knew that what her mom really loved were the memories she’d shared with Bex’s father at this worn-out table, before a tight curve on a dark road had taken him away from both of them.

  “Bex?”

  She forced her hands to stop rubbing circles on the fake wood. “I guess I just...needed to see...home, one last time. I wanted to go through her things, remember her, decide what to keep, what to give away.”

  “Was there any other reason that you came back?” he asked, his deep voice soft, barely above a whisper.

  He was giving her an opening. It shocked her to realize that, to see the longing in his eyes, bared before her. And, God help her, she wanted so much to tell him that, yes, she came back to see him, too. But that wasn’t true. No matter how much she wished it could be. Once she left this time, she knew she’d never see Max again.

  She slowly shook her head. “No. No other reason.”

  He blinked, and like throwing a switch, his eyes shuttered, his expression went blank. “Well,” he finally said. “Guess that answers that.” He gave her a bitter smile. “I loved you, Bex. All those years ago, I loved you in every way a man can love a woman—with my mind, my body, my heart, my soul. And I thought you loved me, too. I would have done anything for you back then. Anything. Together we could have faced whatever really happened the night Bobby Caldwell died. We would have gotten married, raised a couple of kids by now.” He shook his head, a muscle flexing in his cheek. “But all that’s water under the bridge now, isn’t it? You’ve sure as hell moved on. Guess it’s high time I moved on, too.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket. “If going to the station’s too difficult, so be it. We’ll do the interview here. You don’t mind if I record it, do you?”

  She sat as still as a statue, staring at him in shock, reeling from everything he’d just said. And one thing in particular—that it was time he moved on. What did that mean? That in all these years he’d never dated anyone? That he’d been, what, waiting for her?

  She’d dated, a handful of times. But her first dates were always last dates. Because no one had ever measured up to Max. She’d never once considered that he might have been existing in that same limbo that she had all this time. And now she wished that she could tell him the truth.

  That she hadn’t moved on. And never would. That a day hadn’t gone by that she didn’t think of him.

  He arched a brow. “Bex? I’ve turned on the recording app. Do you consent to having your statement recorded?”

  She blinked, then nodded.

  “You have to say it out loud.”

  “Oh, um.” She cleared her throat. “Yes, I consent to having my statement recorded.”

  “Excellent.” He shoved the phone to the middle of the table between them. “First we have to get the logistics out of the way. State and spell your first and last name for the recording. Then list your address and place of employment.”

  She frowned. “Is that really required?”

  He nodded.

  She sighed and told him what he’d asked, admitting that she lived in Knoxville, giving him the address of her condo. And she told him about her antique store. Then she went on to answer his questions about everything she’d done the day of the grocery store shooting.

  The interview started out stilted, on her side at least. But answering his questions was almost a healing therapy for her emotional wounds. It helped her go numb, almost dead inside, and get through this.

  Going over the same questions over and over was grueling, tiring and reminiscent of when the chief had grilled her years ago. Thornton had trained Max well. She felt just as guilty this time as she had ten years ago, even though this time she had nothing to feel guilty about.

  He finally stopped the recording and put his phone away. “I guess that’s it. For now.”

  Relieved, she grabbed both of their long-empty coffee cups and carried them to the sink. After rinsing them, she turned around. Max was still sitting at the table, studying her as if he had a million more questions and was looking to her for the answers. Afraid that he might start the interview all over again, she headed toward the archway into the family room.

  “Thanks again for protecting me this morning.” She waved toward the front door. “You can see yourself out. I’ve got packing to do.”

  She headed into her bedroom, the one she’d had her whole life until she’d left at eighteen. Taking the master bedroom hadn’t even tempted her. It would have felt...weird, sleeping in the room her mother had slept in just a few short weeks ago.

  Her suitcase was in the closet, so she grabbed it and dropped it on top of the bed, then flipped it open. She’d packed light, with just a week’s worth of clothes, and had laundered everything yesterday. It wouldn’t take long before she could head out. She opened the top dresser drawer and grabbed a stack of underwear and bras.

  “You’re not sticking around?”

  Startled, she jumped, then pressed a hand against her chest. Max lounged in the doorway to her bedroom, looking impossibly appealing.

  “Sorry,” he said, even though he didn’t look sorry. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

  She shoved her armload of underwear into the suitcase and headed to the dresser for more clothes. “I’m going home.”

  “When?”

  An armload of shorts and T-shirts went into the suitcase. “Today. Now. Just as soon as I’m packed.”

  “Don’t you want to stick around and find out why those gunmen went after you?”

  She hesitated, her arms full of jeans. “What are you talking about? They robbed the store. You make it sound like it all had something to do with me.”

  “I’m thinking maybe it did. They didn’t rob the store. They were searching up and down aisles looking for you. At least, that’s what it seemed like to me.”

  She slowly lowered the jeans into the suitcase. “Why would they be looking for me?”

  He shrugged, not offering anything else. Probably because it was part of his investigation.

  “All the more reason to leave, then.” She headed for the closet to get her shoes.

  Max wandered around the room, picking up a few odds and ends from her childhood—little horse figurines on her dresser, a cross necklace her mom had given her on her sixteenth birthday. And then he looked up, at the wall over her dresser, and froze.

  Bex could feel her face growing warm. “Mom left my room exactly the way it was the day I left.”

  He was in most of the pictures, with her, because they’d always been together, from middle school on. It seemed that every fun or cherished moment in her life had Max in it—her first dance, the field trip to Animal Kingdom at Disney, playing video games at the arcade in the mall one town over from Destiny. And there was their graduation photo, the last one taken of the two of them. They’d walked together, hand in hand in their black graduation robes, each of them boasting the gold stoles of the National Honor Society. Both of them smiling and happy.


  “Figures I’d find you both here, in your bedroom. Just like old times, huh?”

  Bex and Max both turned to see Bex’s old high school nemesis, Marcia Knolls, standing in the doorway. Max’s hand had automatically gone to the gun holstered at his hip, but he relaxed when he saw who was standing there.

  “What are you doing in here?” he demanded. “You should have knocked.”

  “I did. You two were apparently too busy to hear me.” She smirked at Max. “Does your girlfriend know about all those police interns you’ve been screwing?”

  Bex blinked, then looked at Max.

  His eyes narrowed, and he took a step toward Marcia.

  Bex hurried to step between them.

  “Marcia, hey. It’s been a long time. Is there something I can help you with?”

  Marcia glared at her, hands coiled into fists at her sides. Surprisingly, Bex wasn’t even mad at her for her crude comment about her and Max. Instead, she felt sorry for her. Marcia was one of those people who’d been miserable the whole time Bex had known her and had blamed others for that misery. It was clear that she hadn’t changed, that she was still just as miserable and lonely as she’d been back in high school.

  “I heard about the shooting,” Marcia said. “Figured I’d stop by and see if you were okay.” She glanced at Max. “Looks like you’re doing just fine, already slipping back into old habits.”

  Bex doubted Marcia had stopped by hoping she was okay. If anything, she was looking for some juicy gossip.

  “There was a shooting at the Piggly Wiggly. But thanks to Max, everyone is fine. He saved my life, and the lives of everyone else in that store.” She could feel the weight of his stare, as if he was surprised or wondering if she really felt that way.

  “Yeah, well, too bad he couldn’t save everyone years ago,” Marcia taunted. “Then maybe Bobby would still be around.”