by H. G. Nadel
“It’s okay, Julia. It’s just the shock. You’ll be all right. Did you recognize that guy?”
“No. I’ve never seen him before. But his eyes! Did you see his eyes?!”
“Yes, but what about them?”
“It was like before, with Dr. Bertel. They looked like they were filled with blood.”
Austin tightened his arms around her and muttered almost to himself, “I know. I know. I—I’m just glad nothing happened to you.”
“But he didn’t come after me.” Julia stood up straight at the sudden realization. “He went straight for you.” Suddenly she felt dizzy, and she could no longer think about anything other than what her immediate senses were telling her. She felt his heart thumping under her cheek. She was very aware of his arms around her. A warm ache spread from her chest down to her toes and out to her fingertips. She was overstimulated from the adrenaline—first at the shooting range, and then moments ago during the attack—and the sudden swelling of desire within her was just too much stimulation for one afternoon. She stepped back and put a hand on his chest to maintain her distance, as well as her balance.
That was when she saw him. Tyler. He was standing stock still in the midst of the crowd of milling, staring, shouting teens, and he was staring right at her—her and Austin. She could tell by the angry set of his jaw that he was grinding his teeth, trying not to lose his temper. Then she saw his best friend, Rob Singh, walk up and put a hand on his shoulder. Rob was a handsome kid of Indian descent, tall with large chocolate eyes. Tyler yanked his shoulder away from Rob, tipped his chin toward Julia, and muttered something. Rob nodded. Both of them threw their shoulders back and marched toward Julia and Austin. When they were about 25 feet away, Rob’s eyes lit up with recognition. He yanked Tyler back by the arm.
“Whoa!” Rob muttered to Tyler. “Wait. I’ve seen that dude before. He’s a cop.”
“I don’t care,” Tyler said.
“Not now, bro. Everyone’s watching.”
Tyler stopped and turned back to survey the crowd. Julia could see the hurt in his eyes as he turned towards her with a silent, “Why?” Julia’s heart fell. Fifty silent teenagers were quietly watching, wondering what he would do next. As if on cue, Tyler shrugged his shoulders and followed Rob back into the restaurant.
Julia heard sirens coming their way.
SIXTEEN
The night was a deep black when Austin dropped Julia off at her apartment in a gray truck he picked up from the police department. She waited while he ran around to her side of the car and opened the passenger door.
“C’mon, let’s go meet Jack,” he said.
“Jack?”
He motioned at a dull, silver Chevy Impala parked across the street from her apartment. “Jack’s the detective who’s going to watch your place tonight. He’s also my partner.”
Julia nodded. As they walked toward the car, she cast nervous glances around her neighborhood, alert to every bush, every alley, every trash bin. Should they be broadcasting the existence of her security detail to anyone who might be watching? Then it occurred to her that it was probably pretty obvious that this was an unmarked police car. If stalkers knew that someone was watching her, it might be a deterrent—except maybe to someone who was possessed. Would he even fear a police officer?
The car’s automatic window lowered as they approached, revealing a man who looked ten years older than Austin, a 30-something Hispanic man with a shaved head and barrel chest that threatened to bust out of his loose Hawaiian shirt. He grinned at Julia and ran a hand over his head, as if straightening the hair that used to be there.
“Julia, this is my partner, Detective Jack Alvarez. He has taught me everything I know. Jack, this is my friend, Julia.” Jack raised his eyebrows, but Austin just smiled.
“Nice to meet you, young lady. I’ve heard a lot about you.”Jack rolled amused eyes at Austin, which Julia assumed to mean Jack was dismissing her as nothing worth talking about.
“Thanks for watching out for me,” she said.
“Of course. Don’t you worry about anything tonight. I give up sleeping at night so you don’t have to. But if you see anything suspicious, you call this number.” He handed her a business card, then held up his cell phone. “That calls this phone.”
“Okay,” she said.
“Thanks, man,” Austin said.
“Only doing my job—just like you,” Jack added with a wink. His automatic window rolled shut before Austin had a chance to retort.
Austin put a hand on Julia’s back as they turned to cross the street toward her apartment. At her apartment, he asked her to wait in the doorway while he checked every room to make sure no one was inside. After a few moments, he returned. “It looks safe. Jack’ll be outside all night. If you see anything suspicious, call him like he said. If there’s an emergency, call Jack first and then immediately call 911.”
“I wish it were you staying here all night,” she said. “I feel safe around you.” Julia immediately blushed, but Austin considered her comment, chewing at his lip while he thought for a moment. He turned toward her and gently brushed her hair back from her shoulders, resting one hand lightly on her neck.
“I wish I could stay too. But Jack is in charge; and once I told him everything that happened, he assigned me to run down some leads on that guy who attacked us. You going to be okay?” Julia nodded slightly, wishing he would put his muscular arms around her and, this time, never let go. “I’ll call tomorrow to check on you. And Jack will introduce you to your daytime guy in the morning. Make sure you bolt the door behind me.” Julia stood by the door for a few moments, watching Austin slowly leave her apartment. He kept looking back—whether to check for possible intruders or out of concern for her she couldn’t tell. She hoped it was the latter.
After she bolted the door, Julia sat on the couch, set her new gun case on the coffee table, and pulled out the Super Taser. She loaded it the way Larry had shown her, then picked it up and aimed it at an imaginary target. She set it down and went to her bedroom to grab a nightshirt. She had just two plans for the rest of the evening: a long hot shower and bed. She paused as she pulled her nightshirt out of the drawer. Something in her room wasn’t right. Everything seemed to be in its usual place, and yet …
Julia turned and looked at her laptop bag, which was leaning against the wall next to the closet where she always left it. It looked flatter than usual. Her heart jumped into her throat as she reached for the bag, took a deep breath, and opened the flap. Her laptop was gone! That computer contained all her work notes. She had a backup in a safe at work, but that wasn’t the issue. Now someone out there had access to everything she’d ever written about her research with Bertel … plus a few things she had never even told him.
She ran to the phone to call Austin but was stopped by a pounding at her door.
“Hey! I told you to stay still and be quiet,” said a gruff male voice she didn’t recognize.
“Julia!” said a more familiar male voice.
“I’m warning you,” said the gruff voice.
She peered through the peephole. It was Tyler. Detective Jack Alvarez stood behind him. She unlocked and flung open the door. Tyler clutched a bedraggled bouquet of flowers, while Jack clutched Tyler’s shoulder. A couple of petals clung to Jack’s shirt, barely visible amid the loud flower pattern.
“Sorry to disturb you,” Jack said. “But I caught this guy in the bushes. Claims he’s your boyfriend.”
Tyler gave Julia a pleading look, and Julia nodded. “It’s true. Tyler’s my boyfriend. Not sure why he’s in the bushes.”
“I told you,” Tyler said, scowling as he pushed Jack’s hand off his shoulder and slipped past Julia to stand behind her.
Jack’s face remained neutral, professional, as he turned to Julia, “Sorry for the misunderstanding. Usually the only time I find some woman’s so-called boyfriend in the bushes is when he’s stalking her. You sure you’re going to be okay?”
Julia nodded rap
idly. “I’ll be fine, Detective Alvarez. Tyler’s harmless.”
“You know where I am if you need me,” Jack said. He lifted a hand to the butt of the gun in his shoulder holster and turned stern eyes on Tyler, before walking away.
Julia shut the door and turned to face Tyler, her lips pressed together.
Before she could think of what to say, Tyler unclenched his jaw. “Tyler’s harmless? What the hell’s that supposed to mean? Like I’m some puppy dog you can control by whacking it on the nose with a newspaper?”
“Of course not. I just meant you weren’t dangerous. Why were you in the bushes?”
“I saw you with that cop earlier, lookin’ tight. I wanted to see what my girlfriend’s up to when I’m not around.” The muscles in his jaws were round and hard like jawbreakers, and they twitched like a current was running through them. In all the years she had known him, she had never seen him so angry.
“Detective Moore has been helping me. I received a death threat since the last time I talked to you.”
“How come you didn’t tell me?”
“Tyler, you said you just wanted to meet up over the weekend. I didn’t want to bother you.”
“You two looked pretty cozy when I saw you. Is copping a feel part of his cop duties?”
“Did you see the smashed windshield of the car we were in, Tyler? We were attacked, and that was the result. I almost fainted. Austin was comforting me.”
“Maybe your boyfriend should be the one to comfort you.”
“You weren’t there, Tyler. I’ve been trying to call, but you never answer. That guy tried to kill me tonight.”
Tyler looked puzzled for a moment. Then he flopped into a corner of the couch. He took a deep breath and let it out, slowly. “I’m sorry, Julia. I just … I don’t know. What happened?”
Julia didn’t know where to begin, so she started with the flowers. “Are those for me?”
“What? Oh, right.” He thrust the flowers away from his body, as if he wanted nothing more to do with them.
“Thank you. They’re beautiful,” she said. “I’ll go put these in some water.”
She went to the kitchen, using the time to compose herself. As she put the flowers in a vase, it occurred to her that Tyler had never given her flowers before. She returned to the living room, set the vase on the coffee table, and sank into the opposite corner of the couch from him. As she watched him sitting on the couch, face contorted from the pain of seeing her with Austin, her thoughts returned to the past. She and Tyler had known each other almost since they were babies. They had attended school together since kindergarten. They had played together, built forts together, hit cars with water balloons together. She’d had a crush on him since middle school. But she’d always been too shy to grab the attention of the most popular guy in school, until a few months ago. She still couldn’t account for it, except that one of the judges she’d almost killed was a teacher, and that inadvertent crime had made her a fleeting celebrity. “Killing a teacher!” Nadia had said. “That’s, like, every kid’s secret fantasy, isn’t it?”
Whatever the reason for Tyler’s sudden romantic interest in her, she’d been grateful for it. She wasn’t sure she was willing to let go of someone she’d waited for—for so long. There was still a chance that Austin was simply a cop who confused the excitement of an interesting case with romantic feelings for a witness. She’d heard about that sort of thing.
Her thoughts were interrupted by Tyler’s low voice made unusually harsh by the hurt he was trying to mask. “Well?” Tyler said. “Are you going to tell me about this big mystery or not?”
So Julia told him. She started with Bertel’s sudden reappearance and told him everything that had happened since, leaving out her surprising feelings for Austin, her strange dreams about Austin, and her trip to the shooting range with Austin. She also left out the two notes that said, “I’ll never leave you,” and her growing belief that she had opened a door to the afterlife. She knew if she told Tyler about her new superstitions, he would laugh her into next year. Though making him laugh was tempting. She’d never before seen him so close to tears.
Now, as she finished her story, he scooted across the couch and put his arms around her. “Poor thing. You’ve been through so much, and I wasn’t there.”
“It’s okay. You couldn’t have known.” She leaned her head against his chest and put her arms around his waist. But the feeling was wrong. She thought about how it felt to put her arms around Austin and how much she wished it were him sitting here now. The thought made her feel guilty, and she tried to put it out of her mind. This was her boyfriend, not Austin. This was the guy she should turn to for comfort. She changed the subject. “Hey, remember when we were kids and Rob threw that rock at me at the beach?”
“And you were too clumsy to duck, so I had to push you out of the way and save your ass?” he quipped.
She sighed. That was the Tyler she knew. She pulled away from him and sat up. “Yep, that’s me. But it turns out I’m not so clumsy with a gun. Austin took me to the shooting range today, and I fired a gun and …”
“He took you to the—was that part of the investigation?”
“He just took me as a friend. He was worried about my safety.”
“I’ll bet,” he said. Tyler stood and walked across the room as far from her as possible. When he turned to look at her again, his face was contorted. “Are you sure you didn’t hook up with that cop?”
She answered slowly, “Nothing happened.” What she didn’t say was how glad she was that she’d never gone all the way with Tyler, either. She thought she’d been saving her virginity for the right moment. But now she couldn’t help but think she’d been saving it for the right guy, and the right guy wasn’t Tyler. She realized suddenly that the time had come. She loved Tyler too much to hurt him, yet she was no longer the person he thought he knew. He deserved better. She needed to break up with him.
“Um, Tyler,” she began. Then Tyler started to cry.
“Look, I know I haven’t been a very good boyfriend. I’ve been absorbed with practice and the guys, and I haven’t even asked you about your research. But I can do better. And I know this guy is older than I am, and probably smarter, and he’s a cop so he’s got this hero and protector crap going for him, but I … I really care about you, Julia. I don’t want to lose you.”
How can I break up with him now? Julia asked herself desperately. She walked up to him and put her arms around his slender waist, feeling the familiar pressure of his athletic chest against her breasts. His muscular arms pulled her against him—so hard that her ribs felt like they might snap—but she didn’t ask him to ease up. Tears filled her eyes, and she didn’t know if it was because she really did love him, or because she didn’t.
He turned her face to his and kissed her, his lips more tentative, uncertain, and gentle than ever. She felt an ache spread through her chest, and she began to sink into the moment.
She was jolted into reality with a sudden thought and pulled away abruptly. “Oh crap, the laptop!”
“What?”
“Someone stole my laptop! I need to call the police.”
“Your laptop?”
“It has all of my research notes on it.”
“So you need to call Austin.”
She nodded. “It’s his case.”
Tyler nodded and rubbed the heel of his hand against his red eyes. “I understand. Really. But I don’t want to be here for this. I, just, I can’t take it. I’m going home.”
“Call me tomorrow?” she said.
“Okay, sure.” He shook his head, muttering to himself, and hurried out the door.
Julia watched Tyler as he yanked open the door of his car, revved the engine, and screeched out of the parking lot. She felt a pinch in her heart as she watched him leave. She allowed herself one last look then pushed her feelings aside. She walked to the kitchen phone—and just as she reached for it, the phone started to ring. She looked at the clock. It was nea
rly ten o’clock. She picked up the phone and answered in a voice just above a whisper. “Hello?”
“Julia, this is Caleb. Dr. Bertel. Please don’t hang up. I called to warn you. You’re in terrible danger.”
SEVENTEEN
Julia held her breath. Thoughts swirled in her head like a whirlpool, and she felt herself starting to drown in I them. She was stunned that Bertel would dare to call her after their last encounter. Her first urge was to hang up. But there was something in his voice that reminded her of the old Bertel. Her friend was trying to warn her about some danger. But danger from whom? Himself? She hesitated.
“Julia? You still there?”
Curiosity took over. “Yes, I’m still here.”
“Before I say anything else, I just want to tell you I’m sorry. I wasn’t … I wasn’t myself before. It was as if someone had taken over my body, and I was watching from the sidelines. But now—I remember everything, Julia! All the way from my mother taking me to my first science museum, to the moment before I put in that light bulb. I could have killed you this morning, and I am very sorry.”
“Like you said, you weren’t yourself this morning.”
“Yes, but I’m still responsible. Can you possibly forgive me?”
Julia wasn’t sure if she was ready to trust him, but she wanted to. “Of course I forgive you. I’m just relieved to hear you’re back to your old self.” She paused. “Dr. Bertel, do you remember asking me about your research?”
“Yes, I do. I was so desperate to figure out who I was, I guess it drove me a bit mad.”
“I have another theory about that,” she said. “But I don’t want to talk about it over the phone.”
“That sounds serious.”
“It could be.”
“Should we meet somewhere to discuss it?”
“First, I think we need to meet with the police and clear this up.”
“But that’s what I called to warn you about, Julia. I have learned some things about your police friend, things that I am very concerned about. I don’t think you should trust him.”
