by Trisha Grace
Tyler cocked his head to the side. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, the bed is big enough for both of us.”
He nodded and got up on the bed. “Look what I found on your bookshelf.” He waved Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in his hand. “Looks like someone has read it quite a few times,” he said as he flipped through the worn out pages.
“What are you doing with that book?”
“I figured you probably won’t be able to sleep after what happened, so I thought I could read to you.”
No one had read to her since her parents passed away.
She laughed softly. “Why not?” she said, settling down beside him.
Tyler opened his arm and waited for her to lean in before he wrapped his arm around her and began reading.
She laid her head against his chest, feeling his chest move as he breathed in and out. She listened to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat and to him giving voice to Shakespeare’s words.
“No one has taken care of me the way you do,” she mumbled.
Tyler stopped reading and placed the book down. “And I promise I’ll continue to do so.” He gave her a peck on her hair, then lifted her chin and kissed her.
She broke from the kiss, leaning back on his chest.
Tyler kissed her hair again and continued reading until she fell asleep.
Her eyes flew open just as Tyler suddenly tightened his arm around her.
She thought she’d heard glass shattering, but she wasn’t sure if she was dreaming.
The earsplitting alarm answered her question.
“Are you awake?”
She sat up, running her hand through her hair.
“Stay here,” Tyler said and got out of bed.
“I want to go with.” She hopped off her bed and made her way over toward him. She didn’t want to be alone.
With her hand in his, Tyler opened the door. Instead of taking her down the stairs, he brought her over to the guest room. Marianne had opened the door and was standing by the doorway.
“Is it Joanne?” Marianne asked as they neared.
Kate hadn’t thought about that. She rubbed her hands against her arms as thoughts of Joanne stalking them to her house took over.
Tyler cupped his hand against Kate’s cheek and said, “I’ll check it out. Stay here with Marianne.”
Tyler strode away, checking the bathroom on that level before moving downstairs. “Mr. Sawyer?” he shouted when he was halfway down the stairs.
Instead of an answer, he heard a shout of pain before Mr. Sawyer started cursing.
Tyler hurried down the stairs just as Mr. Sawyer flipped the switch, turning on the lights.
Tyler glanced at the glass pieces shattered across the floor and the patches of blood on some of the glass shreds. “Are you hurt?” he asked when he saw the blood stains leading to where Mr. Sawyer was standing.
“Just my feet. I stepped on the glass when I tried to switch on the lights. I think someone threw something through the window.”
“Did you see anyone?”
“No, I only heard the glass breaking,” Mr. Sawyer said and jumped when the phone started ringing.
“Leave it. It’s security.” He cautiously stepped across the glass pieces and looked out of the broken window. The porch lights weren’t triggered, so Mr. Sawyer was probably right.
He turned back to the floor, and sure enough, not far from the window lay a rock. He picked it up, but didn’t bother examining it. Placing the rock on the table nearby, he said, “I’ll do a quick check around the house. Stay here.”
He moved around the house, checking the kitchen, making sure that every door and window was still locked. When he was done, the phone rang again. He ignored it and jogged up the stairs. “Where’s your first aid kit?”
“Are you hurt?” Kate asked, giving him a look over and searching for his wounds.
“Not me. Mr. Sawyer, he stepped on the glass.”
Kate nodded and ran into the bathroom to get the first aid kit while Marianne hurried down the stairs.
“Be careful of the glass!” he shouted after Marianne.
Shortly after, Tyler and Kate joined them downstairs with the first aid kit. While Marianne attended to Mr. Sawyer, Kate went over to cut off the alarm and asked, “Should we call the cops?”
“They should be on the way. I didn’t answer the security call,” he said as his eyes fell on the rock sitting on the table.
He was briefly distracted when the motion sensor lights turned on, flooding bright white lights onto the front porch. He looked out of the window and saw a few people, clad in pajamas, moving cautiously toward Kate’s house.
“My neighbors,” Kate said as she peered over his shoulder to see what he was staring at. Then she moved over to her door.
“No.” Tyler grabbed her hand.
He bent over and looked out of the window. “We’re fine. The police are coming.”
Kate popped her head over.
“Are you all right?” one of the neighbors asked.
“Yes, we’re fine. Sorry about the alarm. The police are coming.” Kate turned back to him. “I should go out and talk to them.”
“No. I don’t want you going outside, not until the police are here.”
She peered out of the window again. “Just a prank; someone threw something through the window.” She smiled and waved.
That reminded him of the rock.
When he’d first picked it up, he noticed something was wrapped around it. But he was more concerned with making sure no one had actually broken into the house.
He walked over and picked the rock up for a closer look. A folded piece of brown paper was secured to the rock by rough nylon strings.
He tugged on the string and unfolded the paper.
BACK OFF OR YOU WILL PAY
The words that formed the sentence were made up of cut-out letters from magazines. Besides that line of words, there wasn’t anything else on the note.
His jaws tightened as he clenched the paper in his hand.
“What is it?” Kate asked as she moved over toward him.
“We’re filing a report.”
Kate peered over and gasped at the threat in his hand. “Is that Joanne? If we tell the police, she’ll get into trouble. Maybe we should call Dan.”
“If she did this, she’s gone too far.”
Kate stood, vacillating between obeying a seething Tyler and protecting his friendship with Dan. “Ty, she can’t hurt me, not with you here. Let me call Dan. I don’t want to get the police involved in a family matter.”
“Joanne isn’t family.”
“But Dan is. Please let me call him,” she pleaded.
He sighed and conceded. He moved over to the phone and made a call, canceling the dispatched police car.
Dan was at her house in less than thirty minutes. He shook his head when he saw the note. “I called my parents. They swore she was home all night, but I won’t count on it.”
“Do you think she did it?” Kate asked.
“It doesn’t seem like her style. She’s more of someone who’ll write across the door or window with her red lipstick.”
Tyler rolled his eyes.
“But you should call the cops anyway. If she did this, she’s definitely losing her mind,” Dan continued.
“You mean this evening at the mansion wasn’t proof that she’s completely lost it?” Marianne asked.
Dan sighed. “Call the police,” he said to Tyler. “I’m really sorry about everything.”
“Thank you,” Tyler stated as he picked up the phone. He wasn’t intending to let it go in the first place. He wasn’t going to allow someone to threaten Kate and get off scot-free.
“Ty.” Kate tried taking the phone away from him, but he was faster.
He took a sidestep and moved around her while dialing 911.
“Dan, are you sure? If this is Joanne, she’ll get into serious trouble.”
“It’s high time she learns that there are conseque
nces to her actions,” he said and looked at the pieces of glass on the floor. “Do you want me to clean it up?”
“No, Ty says we should leave it for the cops to see.”
The police arrived shortly after Tyler made the call. They took a look around the house and asked why he’d canceled the first report. Tyler said they thought it was a prank, then realized it wasn’t when he saw the note.
The police asked a series of questions about who they thought the culprit was and if anyone would want to hurt any of them.
Tyler, Marianne, and Mr. Sawyer all brought up Joanne. Even Dan admitted that his sister was behaving erratically.
Tyler stood beside Kate while the police interviewed her. Kate agreed that Joanne had been causing problems for her but added that it might all be an unfortunate coincidence.
As Kate defended Joanne, the police cast a glance over to Tyler. His only response was a tight-lipped smile.
The officer nodded and, before leaving, promised he would send more patrols.
“I need to call Evelyn and tell her about this. Otherwise, she’s going to get real pissed when she hears about it from you,” Kate said to Dan as she picked up the phone. While she spoke to Evelyn, Dan helped Tyler clear up the mess.
“Ty, I don’t think it’s Joanne. But, for what’s worth, if it’s her, I’m really sorry about it.”
Tyler nodded; he knew that even if it was Joanne, it wasn’t Dan’s fault. If anyone were to be blamed, it would be him. He was the one who allowed Joanne to address him as her boyfriend for that long. “You’re not her keeper.”
“Thanks.” Dan said.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Yes. Yeah, he’s here. They were here, too. Took our statements and left. No, there’s no need. I’ll see you in the morning. Yeah, yeah, okay. Bye.” Kate hung up the call and turned back to Tyler as Dan’s phone began ringing.
“It’s Eve,” he said. “Well, I’ll leave you all to sleep.”
Kate waved goodbye while Dan trotted out, picking up Evelyn’s call.
Tyler ran his fingers through Kate’s hair and rested his hand on her back. “Go back to bed. I’ll tape up the window and be right up.”
“I’ll do it,” Mr. Sawyer said.
“Are you sure you want to stay here tonight? Without the window—”
“I’ll be fine. Leave this to me,” Mr. Sawyer assured.
“Thanks.” Tyler smiled and took Kate’s hand, returning to her room.
Chapter Twenty Two
Kate shifted closer toward Tyler as she felt his hand running through her hair. “Mm …” she moaned and took in a deep breath. “Are you up?” she asked with her eyes closed.
“Sorry to wake you.”
“It’s all right. I was half awake anyway.”
She couldn’t really sleep. Her brain kept processing everything that had happened, and she couldn’t think about anything but her new doppelganger.
She scooted closer to Tyler, listening to his steady heartbeat, allowing it to wind down her overactive mind. Then, realization hit her.
There was another possibility.
Kate hadn’t been able to reach Lydia since they had gone up to the cabin. It was only over a weekend. But no matter how busy Lydia was, unless they were in one of their cold wars, she would at least reply Kate with a text.
Maybe it had something to do with Detective Cooper.
Then again, their visit happened so long ago, and they had nothing to go on. Why would anyone tell them to back off now?
As her mind churned through the possibilities, the concern for Lydia grew. And as that concern grew, she couldn’t stay in bed.
She got up and picked up the phone.
“What’s wrong?” Tyler asked.
“I need to check something with Lydia.”
It was still way too early to call someone, but she dialed Lydia’s phone repeatedly, determined to speak to her even if she had to spend the entire day doing nothing but hit the redial button.
When Lydia’s drowsy voice answered the call, Kate shouted into the phone, “Don’t you know you’re supposed to call a person back when there’s a missed call? What’s wrong with you? Where have you disappeared to?”
There was a moment of silence as Lydia took in what was happening. “Sorry, I was busy.”
“Busy? So busy that you can’t take one minute of your life to send me a text?”
“Sorry,” Lydia mumbled.
Kate sighed, crawling back into bed. After venting the pent-up anxiety, she relaxed and told her sister everything that had happened the night before.
Then she questioned Lydia, asking her if she’d received any threats and if she’d been back to Detective Cooper’s house.
Lydia assured Kate that neither had happened.
“I guess she didn’t get any threats,” Tyler said when she put down the phone.
“Nope.”
He narrowed his eyes and continued. “Why do you look like you don’t believe her?”
Kate gave him a wry smile as her head bobbed up and down. “Lydia’s stubborn. You don’t know how many times she got into a row with my grandparents in hope of digging out more information regarding my parents’ deaths. She’s never stopped asking. And now with the detective being the only lead, I’m afraid she wouldn’t let it go so easily.”
“Then why didn’t she just tell you?”
“Because she knows I’ll try to stop her, and she doesn’t like to entertain people who don’t hold the same view as she does.”
“But the visit was some time back.”
“I know. It doesn’t make sense. Besides, he’s an old man in a wheel chair. I don’t think he’ll get himself here just to throw a rock through my window.”
“But?”
“The last time I spoke to Lydia, she told me she was concentrating on a cold case project and that was all. Now, she suddenly has so many reports to complete. I haven’t seen her in weeks, so she could’ve gone back to the house a few more times or found something else. I don’t know. It doesn’t seem like her to let it go so simply. Like how Joanne doesn’t seem the kind to throw rocks into someone’s house in the middle of the night.”
“Dan said the police went over to his parents’ house, and Joanne was at home. His parents also vouched that she was there the whole night.”
“You know what? This could be a stupid prank by some neighbor’s kid. We’re thinking too much into it. I’m going to change and get to work.”
Since she hadn’t been staying at her own house, there wasn’t anything for Marianne to cook. But even as she headed down the stairs, she could smell food. “Where did you get that?” she asked.
“Mr. Sawyer went out to get them this morning.”
She pulled out a chair and sat by the dining table, Tyler settling beside her.
It was a four-seater table, nothing like the long oval dining table back at the mansion. It felt weird to be seated so snugly when there were so few people.
“I think you should apply for a restraining order, just in case,” Mr. Sawyer said as she began eating. “I can’t guarantee that we can get it. But she did hurt you once, and with her behavior last night, it should convince a judge to give you one.”
“Yes, you should,” Marianne stated. “For your own protection.”
She turned to Tyler, thinking he’d jump on the bandwagon while he had his supporters. Instead, he shrugged and waited for her reaction.
“Aren’t you going to ask me to get a restraining order?”
“It’s just a piece of paper; it doesn’t provide much protection.”
“And it seems too extreme, doesn’t it? She’s Dan’s sister. She didn’t threaten or try to hurt me; she was only focused on you.”
“Then forget about that,” Tyler said.
Kate saw Marianne’s eyes widening even as her own eyes narrowed.
“But, let me drive you to and from work. You tell either Evelyn or me where you’re going and always take someone with you wherever you go, preferably Ev
elyn or me.”
Kate laughed and shook her head. “That was why you agreed with me on the restraining order issue, so you can make me compromise on this.”
“You have a choice; you can say no.”
“Really?” she asked, scrutinizing his face. Tyler had been patient with her. The least she could do was to agree with him and ease his mind. “Yeah, I can do that.”
Evelyn arrived just as their conversation about Joanne came to an end. After stealing a donut and catching up on what had happened, Evelyn and Kate went to work.
The moment they stepped into the office, they knew something was wrong. There was an extremely tense atmosphere, and everyone seemed afraid to make any movement.
Kate scanned the room, and her fingers reached for her necklace as she saw Joanne seating at her temporary desk, still dressed like a replica of herself.
“Joanne, I fired you last night. What the hell are you still doing here? Get out.”
Kate sighed. She’d thought that since Joanne was Dan’s sister, Evelyn would at least be civil.
“You said I’ll win if I can stick it out until the team’s out of probation, so I’m sticking it out.”
“No, you’re not. This ridiculously brainless stunt struck you out. Get out of the office or I’ll call security.”
“What are you trying to do, Joanne?” Kate said, stepping forward. “You think that by dressing up like me, by sticking with this deal between you and Evelyn would make a difference in things with you and Ty? Even if he does accept you, it’s only because you’re my substitute—which makes no sense because he already has me. And do you want to live the rest of your life pretending to be someone else? So what if you aren’t a spoiled brat? It appears to me that you don’t need to prove that to anyone but yourself.”
“No. When Ty sees that I’m not a spoiled brat, he’ll see me differently.”
Kate’s head swayed side to side as she licked her lips. Being polite and sensitive to Joanne wasn’t getting them anywhere. “Joanne, he won’t care. The only thing he cares about is making sure that you don’t hurt me. That’s the only situation when he’ll even think about you.”
She saw Joanne opening her mouth to speak, so she quickly continued. “When someone threw a rock through my window, he thought it was you and was hell-bent on calling the cops. He didn’t care what would happen to you.”
