Literally Stalked

by Eryn Scott

  “I was too busy to ask him to clarify.”

  “Probably for the best,” Alex said. Voices in the background reminded me he was most likely still at the station.

  “Right. So… something not so great also happened.” I gulped. I wasn’t looking forward to telling him about the note, but he needed to know.

  “What?” The word sounded more tired than worried.

  I hated to put one more thing on his shoulders.

  “I found a threatening note in my apartment.”

  “Inside?” I pictured him sitting up straight, adrenaline readying him for action.

  “Yes, but only slipped under my door. They must’ve been in the bookstore and snuck up the back stairs. I didn’t notice anyone come up here, but… like I said, it was busy.”

  “What does it say?”

  A new bunch of shivers flickered over my skin as I read it to Alex.

  “Me?” He paused for a moment. “But they left it for you.”

  I gulped. “Creepy, huh?”

  “Very. Stay put. I’m coming to you.”

  “Okay.” The word sounded small, and I realized it was all I wanted. Seeing him, touching him, making sure he was okay seemed like the most important thing right now. “Have you had dinner? I can make you something.” It was after eight, but late food was better than no food.

  “Thanks, but Frank got us dinner earlier.”

  I nodded, happy his partner was looking out for him, especially since both Alex and his dad had the tendency to get tunnel vision when it came to their cases.

  “Oh, that’s good.” I scratched behind Hammy’s ears and sighed. “You still have your key?” I asked, not mentioning my fears that I’d possibly locked the murderous intruder inside.

  “Got it. I’ll see you soon,” he said.

  After hanging up the call, I dropped my phone onto my bedspread and focused on the note. Now that the fear had subsided, anger pulsed through me.

  That was it. The man I loved was in danger. And while he was a capable, smart person, I couldn’t stomach standing by when I might be able to help. Sometimes even the strongest, most capable people need someone watching their backs.

  I moved Hammy out of my lap and onto the bed then padded over to the moving box that held my desk supplies. I fished out a notepad and pen.

  “The sooner we figure this out, the sooner Alex is safe.” I clicked open the pen and reclaimed my spot next to Hammy on the bed.

  She snorted in agreement.

  “Okay, start with what we know.”

  I jotted down the time and place Cole had been killed, then listed the clues from the scene that Alex and Fiona had told me. I wrote Suspects under that list. Tapping my pen on the paper for a moment, I scribbled down Andrea’s name and Emerson’s. No one else came to mind.

  Two names seemed incredibly underwhelming. That wasn’t a lot to go on, but I was obviously the right person for the job since I knew both of them. Andrea had been caught stalking Cole. She was under the impression that love was only true if it came in the form of obsession, and that if two people in love couldn’t be together, the only option was death.

  She could’ve easily followed Cole home that night after class. And the police had questioned her earlier today. Right before I received the threatening note. The fact that the note held a quote from her favorite novel made me shiver.

  Was I sitting in class each week with a murderer?

  The problem was Andrea hadn’t been there when I’d told Janet and Devin that Alex was my boyfriend. The person who left that note for me knew Alex and I were together. Maybe Alex had mentioned something about me during his questioning. Or it was possible she’d seen a snippet of our kiss before we’d broken apart that day in the hallway.

  Then there was Emerson. Alex hadn’t divulged whether or not they’d found anything interesting from their questioning the other day, but I was sure if anyone had a motive to hurt Cole, it was Emerson.

  I pictured his brooding expression, so unlike Cole’s kind one. He’d been jealous of his brother for as long as I could remember, resented his existence. Their parents were both still alive, but getting his brother out of the picture would double his inheritance whenever his parents passed. As for him leaving me the note, I doubted he knew about my connection to Alex.

  A noise downstairs made me freeze. It was probably Alex, but I hated the idea that my note-leaver might still be inside. What was Alex walking into?

  Resolute, I decided if there was a nefarious stalker inside, we would have a much better chance three against one. I grasped the handle to my apartment door, clicked the lock open, and ran down the stairs, Hammy at my heels.

  Relief filled me as the front set of lights flicked on, and Alex walked inside. Having him here made the place warm again. I ran forward and hugged him.

  “You doing okay?” he asked, wrapping his arms around me.

  I nodded into his jacket. “I’m just worried about you.”

  Alex cleared his throat. “I’m fine. Now show me this note, so I can use it to track down this creep.” I could tell he was making his voice lighter, more chipper for me.

  Leading him over to the reading couch, we sat down, and I pulled the note from my pocket. Alex’s features tightened as he took in the boot print on the envelope.

  “Sorry, I didn’t know it was going to be evidence. I may have stepped on it first.”

  Once he had it out of the envelope, he put both pieces in separate evidence baggies before studying them.

  After a few moments, he stood and walked toward the door. But instead of leaving, he flipped the lock. I’d left it unlocked, sure he was just coming to pick up the note and head back to the station.

  I stared at him, confusion probably written in the wrinkles on my forehead.

  “This can wait till tomorrow.” He placed the note on the coffee table and rejoined me on the couch, planting a kiss on my forehead. “I don’t want you alone tonight.”

  My chest ached with relief, and happy tears sprang to the corners of my eyes. I nodded, pressing my lips together to keep them from trembling. Snuggling closer to him, I breathed in his minty scent and threaded my fingers through his.

  But even through my relief, all I could think was, Alex should watch his back.

  8

  After checking the perimeter of the bookstore, the entire downstairs, and securing all the doors and windows, Alex finally fell asleep. I assumed I wouldn’t be able to follow, but the steady rise and fall of his chest—mixed with Hammy’s soft snores—lulled me into a deep slumber.

  I awoke to the smell of eggs and bacon and the sound of Hammy’s collar jingling as she followed Alex around the small kitchen.

  Stretching, I blinked my eyes open and smiled. “I could get used to this,” I said, sliding out of bed and padding over to where he stood in front of the stove.

  My arms wrapped around him, and I smooshed my cheek against his back as I hugged.

  “Well, eggs and bacon were literally all you had in your fridge, so…” He shook his head, but there was a smile in his tone.

  “Yeah, I’m realizing how much Liv did in the way of cleaning, stocking our fridge, and general adulting.” I unwound myself from him and moved to lean against the counter next to the stove, so I could take in his sleep-rumpled handsomeness.

  “You’ll get the hang of it.” He winked.

  “Or you could always move in with me.” I winked back.

  He and his dad had moved up here from California together, to heal after Alex's mom had been shot in the line of duty, but it wasn't in Alex's plan to live with his dad forever.

  Alex cleared his throat, his gaze darting back to the pan. “Ha,” he said flatly. “Would you—uh—grab us some plates?” he asked, his voice stiffer than the spine of a brand new book.

  I bit my lip and nodded, pulling two plates from the shelf, heart aching with doubt and worry. Among all the questions rushing through my mind, I did have one answer: Alex was definitely not ready to mo
ve in together.

  After an awkward breakfast, Alex left to bring the evidence to the station. I wandered through the apartment and let my thoughts race to the worst, most doom-and-gloom parts of my mind.

  Did this mean he didn’t want to be together? Or was he not ready to take our relationship to the next step?

  Eventually, I had to pull myself together enough to open the store.

  It was lucky for me that Nate had chosen that exact week to start the promotion. The place was hopping, and the steady flow of customers helped to keep my hurt feelings in the back of my mind.

  Mostly.

  “He didn’t say anything?” Liv scoffed over the speakerphone as I locked up the store that evening.

  “I mean, he laughed and then said, ‘Grab us some plates,’ but no, nothing about the whole moving-in bombshell I’d dropped.” My tone rose into the whiny register. Clearing my throat, I said, “What should I do?”

  A sigh whooshed through the line. “Yikes, I have no clue. Give him time. It’s possible he’s just overwhelmed with the case and couldn’t think straight.” Liv was trying to be supportive, but her statement seemed a lot more like a question.

  “Maybe.” I reached to shut down my computer, and my phone buzzed with another call. “Hey, Liv. That’s actually him on the other line. Can I call you later?”

  “Sure thing.”

  We said goodbye, and I clicked over to answer his call.

  “Hey.” He sounded tired. Actually, he sounded exhausted. “How’d today go? Any more notes?”

  “Nope,” I said, narrowing my eyes at the back stairway. “I haven’t been upstairs in a while, but Ham and I are heading up there now.”

  Alex waited on the line as I unlocked my apartment. Clicking on the light by the door revealed only the wood floor under my feet.

  “We’re clear. No notes.”

  He exhaled. “Good. Do you want me to come over again?”

  A silence sat between us on the line. The awkward air from my comment this morning still hadn’t cleared.

  “Um… I'm okay.” I smiled, hoping it would convey an easygoing lightness to my words even though he couldn’t see me. “You sound exhausted. Go get some rest in your own bed.”

  I could hear him rub his hand over his face and down his scratchy chin. “Yeah, that sounds good. Talk soon?”

  “Soon.” I nodded. “Love you.”

  “Love you too, Peps.”

  I pressed the phone to my chest once the call disconnected. Liv was right, the man was working crazy hours trying to solve this murder. He probably hadn’t slept as well as I'd assumed last night either. I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. Plus, moving in together was a serious thing for me to bring up in the middle of breakfast like that.

  I had a full day of classes the next day, which helped keep my mind off the weirdness with Alex. Solving this case seemed all the more important now, so I thought through clues between classes, contemplated the suspects.

  Emerson and Andrea.

  Sure Emerson was odd—and the mountain of paranormal books he’d bought the other day didn’t help that image—but could he really have done anything to hurt his brother? I suddenly wished I’d taken advantage of his presence in my bookstore. Maybe I should’ve questioned him, or asked him how he was... anything more than I had done.

  Without a car, I sure wasn’t able to drop in on him up at Woodcrest.

  Unable to talk to Emerson, I spent the day focused on Andrea, someone I didn’t need to borrow a car to find. In class that day, she was quiet, unassuming, and nonconfrontational as we moved on to more lectures about the Brontës. In short, she was nothing like herself.

  I approached her as she packed up to leave for the day. Janet and Devin eyed me warily before scurrying off. Fergie had left right away to make it to an evening lecture, so it was only the two of us as the door closed behind our classmates.

  “Hey,” I said, smiling as widely as I could. “You get your paper done?”

  I fully expected her to roll her eyes and tell me that of course she had.

  “Uh, yeah.” Her gaze was flighty. She swiped her blonde hair out of her face. “Just turned it in to Dr. Ferguson at the beginning of class.”

  In keeping with her new hobby of acting nothing like her normal self, Andrea stopped there. She didn’t boast or brag or tell me it was the greatest thing she’d ever written and wouldn’t be surprised if Fergie wanted to submit it for publication in a literary journal. Instead, she zipped up her bag and hooked it onto one shoulder.

  “I can’t believe it’s been almost a week since Cole died.” I shook my head. “Just a handful of days ago I was leaving class, saying goodbye to him for the last time before going to dinner.” I paused. “What were you doing when you heard the news?”

  It was completely tactless and had about as much chance of working as trying to pass off one of Fergie’s own papers as my own in her class, but I had to try.

  Andrea’s cheeks turned pink. She stared down at her hands. “I’m sure you know already, don’t you? You’re dating that police officer, right? That’s what Janet said.”

  Teeth clenched tight, I reminded myself to avoid telling Janet any more secrets. Okay, technically it wasn’t a secret, and Janet wouldn’t have known I didn’t want Andrea to learn. Heck, I hadn’t known that I didn’t want Andrea to know until that moment. Especially since her knowledge of our relationship meant she could’ve been the one to leave me the threatening note.

  “No,” I said, finally realizing I hadn’t answered her previous question. “I mean, we are together, but he won’t talk to me about the case.”

  Andrea raised her eyebrows in a that’s hard to believe kinda way. As snotty as I found the gesture, it was the first semblance of her normal attitude I’d seen since Alex pulled her aside for questioning the other day.

  “Fine. Sorry, I thought you might miss him too.” I turned to leave.

  “I do.”

  The small, quiet reply made me pause. I turned back to face her.

  Her face was pale. “I miss him more than I should. The way I miss Cole is like the eternal rocks beneath. He’s always in my mind.”

  She transformed into Catherine Earnshaw with those last two lines. I pictured the scene where Cathy confides in her maid, Nelly, about the depth of her love for Heathcliff. A tortured wildness burned behind her eyes.

  “Oh—I—I didn’t realize you two were so close,” I stammered.

  “In a way. And now the entire world is a dreadful collection of memoranda that he did exist.”

  I expected tears to run down her cheeks after hearing another line from what I assumed was Wuthering Heights as the last had been. Instead, her expression hardened into some sort of twisted resolve. Were they really in love, or did she imagine it? That their love was as deep as Cathy and Heathcliff’s when they’d never even dated?

  Light stalking, Alex had said. This seemed like oh so much more.

  “I have to get going.” She turned on her heel, heading away from me, toward the door.

  I couldn’t even form a new thought by the time she disappeared from sight.

  “Well, that was super helpful,” I said sarcastically to the empty room.

  Before I packed my bag to leave, my phone buzzed. I jogged over to where I’d been sitting and dug around until I produced my phone.

  “Hey, Jess, I’m on my way right now,” I said, wondering why she was calling me on her cell phone instead of the bookstore landline like she usually did.

  “Uh, Pepper. We have a problem over here.”

  My heart stopped. “What?”

  “The power went out.”

  I relaxed. “Oh, yeah. That’s happened a few times with these storms we’ve been having. I’m on my way. Let any customers know they’ll have to come back another day. Put the closed sign up in case someone else tries to walk in.”

  “That’s the thing,” Jess said, sounding hesitant. “Everyone else on the street has power. It’s only u
s.”

  I pushed through the classroom door and checked the weather as I traveled down the windowed hall of the English building. The sun was setting, but it was still shining, nonetheless. The icicles hanging from the roof dripped like popsicles left out for too long.

  It was beautiful outside. The weather wasn’t bad at all.

  “Only us?” I asked with a frown.

  “Yeah.”

  “Um… Maybe they cut a specific line that only affects us.”

  “Are you sure you paid the power bill?” Jess laughed.

  I scoffed. I would never be irresponsible enough to—“Omigosh, did I forget to pay it?” Embarrassment rose in waves, like a bathtub filling too quickly, ready to drown me.

  Jess sucked in a breath. “I’m so sorry. I was honestly joking.”

  “What’s today? The sixth?” Six days late surely couldn’t be enough for them to turn the whole kit and caboodle off completely.

  “Yeah, I don’t think they shut it off until like a month or more without a payment.”

  My heart sank, and I couldn’t remember the last time I paid that bill. I rubbed at my face. “Okay, I’m heading there right now. Lock up and leave if you want.”

  “I’ll write a note on the doorway informing people we’re temporarily closed and will reopen in…” She paused, waiting for me to fill in the blank, to tell her what to write.

  “Tomorrow,” I said, followed by a groan. “If I can get the power company to turn it back on that quickly. Thanks, Jess. I’m so sorry about this.”

  I spent the whole walk back to the bookstore on the phone with the power company. Even though this was the first time I’d ever been late with a payment, they were unflinchingly strict. The guy on the phone even treated me as if I were some degenerate freeloader, trying to scam them for free electricity. Finally, I was able to get him to explain that once I paid my overdue bill, they would have the power turned back on within forty-eight hours.

  Jeffery made it sound like forty-eight hours was a gift to such an unreliable soul as me, but all I could think of was what the impact would be to the bookstore having it closed that long.