Followed

by Mark Lukens

  “Carlos called me today at the office. He was making more threats. I tried to talk to him, help him, but then he hung up. That’s the reason I was so edgy tonight about letting Megan go out by herself.”

  “Well, if I would’ve known . . .” Cathy said, but she realized that Phil wasn’t allowed to tell her, and now she felt bad about her reaction earlier.

  “And then he called tonight,” Phil continued.

  “How did he get your cell phone number?” Cathy asked. Phil didn’t usually give it out to patients unless he knew them pretty well.

  “I don’t know. But I think this guy’s been . . . following me for a while now. Stalking me.”

  “But you don’t know who this guy is?”

  He shook his head no. Looked away for a moment.

  “What did he say tonight on the phone to you?”

  Phil waited a moment before answering, like he was recalling the conversation. “He told me that he was at the movies. He told me there were three girls there without parents. But he told me that he was particularly interested in the girl with the pink hoodie.”

  Cathy’s stomach twisted, and she suddenly felt nauseous with fear. And now she had to ask the next logical question. “Do you think this Carlos guy . . . you think he was the one that followed us home on Saturday night?”

  He nodded slowly. “I think he was.”

  “So he was there on that side road waiting for us that night.”

  Again, Phil nodded.

  “But if he already had your cell number, and already had an appointment with you, then he must’ve already known where we lived. Why follow us home?”

  Cathy remembered Phil driving into that subdivision that night, almost colliding with other cars in the process. They thought they had lost the pickup truck, and they had. But then he had appeared right behind them when they’d gotten to their street. Now it made sense—the driver had known all along where they lived. He might have even known that Megan was at home by herself that night. He could’ve come here anytime he wanted to instead of following them. Cathy felt another wave of nausea worm through her, even worse than the last one. She felt like she wanted to vomit, she could almost taste the bile in the back of her throat.

  Phil didn’t answer her question right away. He took a sip from his drink. It almost seemed like he was stalling, trying to formulate an answer. “I don’t know why he followed us home that night,” he finally said. “Maybe toying with us. Playing games. Enjoying his power over us.”

  “You said he was talking about killing people in your session with him. Torturing people.”

  Phil nodded.

  “You said he was acting threateningly.”

  Phil nodded again.

  “Did he threaten you? Did he threaten all of us?”

  It seemed to take Phil another long moment before answering, and she couldn’t help thinking that he was choosing his words carefully, choosing what he wanted to reveal while he held other details back. “No, not directly. He just seemed to hint at things.”

  “But this guy’s dangerous,” Cathy said as she got up to pace around the bedroom. She needed to move around now.

  “He could be,” Phil said, giving his best psychologist answers, turning into Psychologist Phil. But she didn’t need Psychologist Phil right now—she needed Husband Phil.

  “We need to call the police,” she said.

  “I know. I’ve got the card that the detective left with me the other night. I’m going to call him now.” Phil got up and pulled his wallet out of his pants pocket. He found the detective’s card and went to the cordless phone, picked it up, and dialed the number. He left the bedroom.

  Cathy felt a little guilty for undermining Phil’s trauma about the man in the pickup truck following them home a few nights ago. But at the same time, she couldn’t help feeling that Phil had kept certain details about all of this hidden from her even when he knew how dangerous this had become. She couldn’t help feeling that he was still holding information back from her, that he knew more about this situation than he was letting on. She hated feeling so suspicious at this moment, but she couldn’t help it.

  She went out to the living room as Phil entered the kitchen—he was still on the phone. She needed to do something; she needed to feel like she was doing something to protect her family. She went to the sliding glass doors that led out to the pool, checked them for the third time tonight. Still locked. She went to the front door and checked the alarm. Still on. She checked the front door. Still locked. Peeked out the windows to the front yard. No one out there.

  Phil came back into the living room with the phone in his hand, but it was down by his side now. “Detective Grady said he’s on his way over.”

  SEVENTEEN

  Phil

  The doorbell rang.

  Phil answered the door and Detective Grady stood there.

  “Detective Grady, thanks for coming by so quickly.”

  “Sure.”

  “You want to come inside?” Phil held the door open a little wider.

  Cathy was waiting on the couch, the TV on but the sound turned down low.

  The detective’s face was impassive, but he had a small smile with no humor in it. “I think it might be better if we talk outside for a minute.”

  Phil felt his stomach sink, but he stepped outside and closed the door. He had Carlos’ folder in his hands, copies made inside for the detective. Grady had glanced down at the folder in Phil’s hand, but hadn’t asked about it yet.

  The air was humid outside, still hot even though the sun had set hours ago. But at least the mosquitos weren’t too bad yet. Moths fluttered around the porch lights and there were clouds of them over the lighted areas of the front lawn.

  Detective Grady stood very still. He had his little worn notebook in his hands, already flipped open, ready to jot down some notes. “How’s your daughter?”

  “Megan’s fine.”

  Detective Grady’s eyes shifted down to the folder in Phil’s hand.

  “These are the papers that Carlos filled out.” He handed the folder to Detective Grady. “This is all of the information I’ve got on him.”

  The detective accepted the folder, but he gave Phil a hard stare. “You should’ve told me about this guy before.”

  When Phil had been on the phone with the detective earlier, he told him everything that had happened with Carlos so far, but he’d left out a few details like the notecard that Carlos had left behind—the same details he’d left out when talking to Cathy. “I couldn’t tell anybody about Carlos until he actually became a threat,” Phil said.

  “Then you should’ve called me tonight as soon as you got that phone call from him,” Detective Grady said, continuing his scolding. “You should’ve at least called the police.”

  “I know. I . . . I wasn’t thinking.” Phil realized how lame that sounded, how suspicious it might be that he never called the police when a man told him that he was watching his daughter.

  “What now?” Phil asked, trying to change the subject. “Can you get this guy’s number even though it’s restricted?”

  “Yeah. Write down your cell number and provider.”

  “It’s on the inside flap of the folder.”

  Detective Grady nodded. “I’ll get this guy’s number, but he’s probably using a throwaway phone.”

  Phil thought that kind of stuff only happened in the movies, but he didn’t say anything.

  “I’m gonna do some digging on this Carlos guy,” Detective Grady continued. “Might take a day or two. In the meantime, you three need to be careful. You might want to think about taking a few days off of work.”

  Phil nodded in agreement. He’d already made plans to do that. “I’m going to go in tomorrow and arrange things with another doctor. My wife works from home. Megan is almost done with the school year. My wife picks her up and drops her off at school.”

  The detective nodded. “Okay. Good. Just keep your doors and windows locked. Keep your alarm syste
m on all the time.”

  “We will.”

  Detective Grady was about to leave, but he turned back around and stared at Phil, it was a hard stare. “You’re absolutely sure you don’t have any idea why this guy might want to harass you?”

  Phil felt a stab of fear. “No. I believe Carlos is disturbed. He needs more help than I can give him.”

  Detective Grady stared at Phil for another long moment, and then he nodded. “I’ll keep digging.” It seemed like a threat. “I’ll call you soon. Maybe by tomorrow. Let you know what I found.”

  “Thank you.”

  The detective left and Phil went back inside.

  EIGHTEEN

  Cathy

  Cathy woke up later in the night. Phil was tossing and turning beside her in bed. He was talking in his sleep again, having another nightmare.

  He was calling out the woman’s name again.

  She was about to wake him up, but he sat bolt-upright, his eyes wide with fear, stifling a scream.

  “Phil . . .”

  For a moment he didn’t seem to know where he was.

  “Phil,” she said again, her voice a little sharper.

  “Yeah,” he answered in a half whisper/half croak. He licked his lips like his mouth was dry.

  “You okay?”

  “Another . . . just a bad dream.”

  He’d been about to say another bad dream. “Phil, you’ve been having these nightmares every night now.”

  “I’ll be okay.” He sat there for a moment, swallowing hard. “I need to get something to drink.”

  “I’ll get it for you,” she said, stopping him before he could get out of bed. “Just lay back down.”

  He plopped back down, rolling over onto his side.

  “What were you dreaming about?” she asked as she got up, figuring it was worth a shot, figuring maybe he would tell her this time.

  He was silent for a moment, thinking and planning out his answer. “I don’t . . . I don’t remember.”

  It was a lie. She was sure of it. For a second she considered challenging him on it, but she would save it for later.

  Cathy walked out to the living room. They kept the light on over the stove in the kitchen now in case Megan needed to get up in the middle of the night, and that light was enough to see by even out here in the living room.

  Before going to the kitchen, Cathy did one of Phil’s numbers and checked the front door, making sure it was locked. She also checked the alarm keypad, and then she opened the blinds a little and peeked out the front windows. No pickup truck out there in the street, parked in the night just beyond the reach of their front yard lights. The rest of this barren part of their neighborhood was lost in darkness. Being this far away from the other houses didn’t used to bother her at all; in fact, she loved the idea of no close neighbors—but these days it was creepy. Now she felt alone and vulnerable way out here by themselves. Well, except for Barbara’s house. She was the only other one foolish enough to buy at exactly the wrong time in this neighborhood like they had. She wondered if she should check in on Barbara, make sure she was okay. Maybe she would call her in the morning.

  On the way to the kitchen, Cathy glanced down the hallway at Megan’s closed door—no strip of light underneath, so she must be asleep. She had school tomorrow, but Cathy figured it would be difficult for her to sleep tonight after what had happened at the movie theater.

  Phil’s briefcase was sitting on a barstool underneath the bar. She stopped on her way around the bar and counter that separated the living room from the kitchen and looked at it for a moment. Usually he had a habit of bringing his briefcase to the bedroom because he didn’t want Megan going through it—but there it was. It seemed like a lot of his habits were changing lately, especially in the last few days after he’d started drinking again.

  She looked back at their bedroom door to see if Phil was coming. She didn’t hear any noises from the darkness in there. Maybe Phil had already fallen back asleep.

  In a moment of spontaneity, she grabbed Phil’s briefcase and brought it into the kitchen. She set it on the counter where the light was better. She opened it and rummaged through it, pulling out his leather-bound notebook and his calendar book.

  She wasn’t sure why she was doing this. What was she looking for? A love letter from a girlfriend, from a girl named Dolores? A note with a little lipstick kiss at the bottom and a bunch of X’s and O’s? The scent of perfume?

  But now that she had started snooping, she couldn’t stop. She was sure she wouldn’t find anything, but she had to be certain or she was going to keep driving herself crazy. She was just ruling out the obvious, that was all. That’s what she told herself anyway.

  She flipped through his calendar book and froze for a moment, not totally understanding what she was seeing. Then she flipped back through the pages more slowly this time. There were numbers scrawled on all of the pages. They were all the same number—the number twenty-four. The numbers were drawn in different sizes, some with circles around them, some with squares around them, some drawn in blocky numbers, some scratched so hard into the paper that they almost cut through it. What was significant about the number twenty-four? Twenty-four hours? The twenty-fourth day of a month?

  A noise sounded from the living room, a soft scuffling noise.

  Cathy jumped, her eyes darting to the living room, then to their bedroom door beyond the dark living room. The bedroom door was still halfway open.

  Was Phil getting up?

  She shoved the calendar book back into his briefcase, then his larger leather-bound notebook. But as she was stuffing the notebook back into his bag, a small white envelope fell out from between the pages. She picked the envelope up and stared at it.

  It’s nothing, she told herself.

  She turned the envelope over in her hands. Blank, no writing of any kind on it. The envelope was unsealed and she looked inside; she saw a white notecard. With trembling hands (why was she shaking so badly?), she pulled the card out. It was a simple white card folded in half, and it was as blank as the envelope. She opened the card and read the once sentence that was typed inside.

  She had to read the sentence two more times to truly understand what she was reading:

  I know what you did to that girl.

  What girl? Was someone accusing Phil of doing something to a girl? What was going on here?

  There was another soft noise from their bedroom, and there was no mistaking it now—Phil was getting up. He was coming. She slipped the card back into the envelope, then stuffed it back into his notebook and shoved it into the briefcase. Of course Phil might realize that the envelope wasn’t in the same place that he’d tucked it into before, but she couldn’t help that. Besides, why should she be nervous about it? She should be angry that Phil had kept something like this from her. But still, something felt wrong here, something felt strange. She wanted to confront Phil, but she wanted to wait and think about this before she accused him of something.

  Cathy brought the briefcase back to the bar and laid it back on the stool where she’d found it. She hurried back into the kitchen, to the refrigerator. She opened the door, grabbed a bottle of water, closed the door.

  Phil was standing there, staring at her.

  “You okay?” Phil asked her. He looked fully awake now, much more alert and somewhat concerned.

  “Yeah. I got you some water.” She handed him the bottle.

  Phil opened the bottle of water and took a sip, but his eyes were on her the whole time, never wavering, never darting to the stool where his briefcase was.

  There was something strange about his eyes and the way he was staring at her. It was creeping her out, and she looked away, but she made sure she didn’t look at the stool with his briefcase on it.

  “I think I’m going to take some time off,” Phil said. “Stay here with you and Megan until this thing with Carlos is . . . resolved.”

  Cathy nodded. “Yeah. That sounds like a good idea.”

 
“I’m going to go in tomorrow though. Set things up. See if Doctor Braun can take over for me for a few days. Reschedule as many patients as I can.”

  Phil was talking loud and Cathy was afraid he was going to wake Megan up. “Let’s get back to bed,” she told him.

  He took another sip of the water, screwed the cap back on, and took the bottle with him to the bedroom. On his way there, he veered towards the front door.

  “I already checked the door and alarm,” she told him.

  They went back to their bedroom and crawled into bed.

  Cathy lay there in the darkness. She wanted to ask Phil about all of the number twenty-fours she’d seen scrawled in his calendar book. She wanted to ask about the notecard she’d found in the envelope. She wanted to ask who this woman Dolores was that he kept dreaming about. She wanted to ask if Dolores was hurt. Had Phil hurt her? Was Dolores a girl and not a woman? Had Phil done something to a girl in his past?

  But she didn’t ask those things. She still remembered the way Phil had stared at her earlier, like he’d known that she’d been snooping around in his briefcase. There was a malice in his eyes that she’d never seen before.

  Different scenarios ran through her mind as she laid there, possible explanations for the notecard. Maybe there was a reasonable explanation for the notecard. Maybe Phil was dealing with an extremely unbalanced patient at the moment, one that believed his or her own fantasies, someone trapped in horrifying delusions. Maybe in this patient’s mind (and Cathy wondered if this unbalanced patient might possibly be named Dolores) she believed that Phil had done something to a girl.

  But that didn’t make sense. It was Carlos who had gone to the movie theater to stalk Megan. Maybe Carlos had left the notecard for Phil. Maybe Carlos was the delusional one living in a fantasy world. Maybe he had left the notecard for Phil and those words didn’t mean anything—just the ramblings of an insane man.

  But then she wondered if Carlos knew someone named Dolores. Cathy couldn’t help thinking that Dolores had something to do with Carlos, with that notecard, with Phil talking in his sleep, with whatever had been done to a girl, these pieces to a puzzle that she couldn’t see clearly yet. But then again, maybe not. Maybe she was just trying to force two things together that didn’t have anything to do with each other.