Safety In Numbers

by Carla Cassidy

  A secret admirer. It was the stuff that romantic comedy movies were made of, the stuff of young girls’ fantasies. But Meredith wasn’t a young girl and her life wasn’t a movie set.

  She forced her eyes closed, seeking sleep to take the disturbing thoughts out of her head. Maybe tomorrow an assignment would come in that would take her away from Cotter Creek and her secret admirer.

  She was surprised to see the light of dawn against the drawn window shades when she opened her eyes. She rolled over on her side and gazed at her alarm clock. Just after six. She’d slept through the night without dreams.

  Though it had been a late night, she felt rested and ready to take on whatever the day might bring. She showered and dressed in her usual jeans and long-sleeved shirt, then pulled on a lightweight jacket and headed for the kitchen where Smokey and Kathy were already up and drinking coffee.

  For a moment they didn’t see her standing in the kitchen doorway, and she noticed how they leaned toward each other as they spoke, how there was a quiet intimacy between them that spoke of something more than houseguest and cook.

  She had never known Smokey to show any kind of interest in any woman. His life had always been the West family, but there was something in the way he looked at Kathy that made Meredith realize Smokey might want something more from his life.

  Her impulse was to warn him that Kathy was an FBI agent and would leave town at the same time Chase left. Guard your heart, she wanted to say to the man who’d helped raise her. Instead she said good morning and stepped into the kitchen.

  “Meredith, how are you feeling this morning?” Kathy asked. “Did you sleep all right?”

  “Like a baby,” she replied. She got herself a cup of coffee, then joined them at the table. “Where’s Dad?”

  “He got up a little while ago and decided to take an early-morning ride around the property,” Smokey said.

  “Did we wake him last night with our little excitement,” she asked.

  Smokey grinned. “You know your dad, even though he won’t admit it he’s about half-deaf. He didn’t hear anything last night.”

  “Good. I don’t want him upset by any of it. I’m sure whoever was looking in the window last night didn’t mean any harm.” She took a drink of her coffee, then forced a smile to her lips. “I think what I have is a very shy admirer, and hopefully in the next day or two he’ll get up his nerve to approach me in a more traditional manner.”

  “Anymore window peeping and I’m going to kick somebody’s butt,” Smokey said with his usual gruff flare.

  They small talked for a little while longer, then Meredith got up and put her cup in the sink. “I’m going to go say hello to the horses, then take a walk out to the shed in the pasture.”

  “What in the hell are you going to do out there?” Smokey asked.

  “I’ve been going through some of the boxes that Mom had packed out there.”

  “Why?” Smokey looked at her as if she’d lost her mind.

  “If Meredith has a need to go through her mother’s things, then there’s nothing wrong with that,” Kathy exclaimed. “Believe it or not, Smokey Johnson, some people are sentimental.”

  Meredith left them arguing about the merits of being sentimental. She walked out the back door, surprised that despite the early hour the sun was already warming the air.

  They’d probably pay for these unusually nice days with tons of snow in another month or two. Although she’d played off the peeper from the night before with Smokey and Kathy, her 9 mm was tucked into her waistband beneath the jacket. She wouldn’t be unprepared should he decide to show himself.

  Again she told herself that she was probably overreacting, but the idea of being out on the ranch alone and vulnerable was definitely not appealing.

  Her boots whispered through the brown grass as she headed toward the stables where she spent several minutes with the horses.

  As she left the stables, her gaze shot around the area, looking for what, she didn’t know. There were plenty of places to hide on the property if somebody wanted to. Stands of trees were in every direction. Outbuildings dotted the landscape, making perfect places for somebody to hide behind.

  “Stop it,” she muttered with irritation. She refused to let the benign events of the past couple of days freak her out. There was no real reason to believe that any of it was a threat of harm.

  The shed loomed in the distance, and she wondered what had drawn her back here again this morning. Maybe a dream she hadn’t remembered? Or maybe it had been that in making love with Chase she’d felt a fierce desire to connect with the mother she’d never known, a mother she’d love to ask about men and love and life.

  You don’t miss what you never have. That’s what people always said, but she mourned the mother she’d never had.

  She unlocked the shed door and stepped inside. The box she’d looked in the day before was still on the old sofa. But there were several other boxes marked with Elizabeth’s name.

  She put away the one she’d already looked through, grabbed another one and returned to the sofa where she sat and opened the box.

  Once again she found old copies of reviews and playbills and photos. There were fan letters, too. She read each item with interest, lost for a few moments in another life, another time.

  The box also contained several of Tanner’s report cards from first and second grade, a construction-paper Valentine that read “To Mommy from Zack” and a variety of other items. Because of the mix of family items and Hollywood memorabilia, it was obvious to Meredith this box had been packed away long after her mother had moved to Cotter Creek.

  Elizabeth West had given up so much to come here with her husband. She’d left behind a life of luxury and a budding career that most women would have envied.

  Once again Meredith stared at a photo of her mother and wondered, Will that kind of love ever find me? Would she ever love somebody enough to leave her family, her life here in Cotter Creek?

  Unbidden a vision of Chase entered her mind. It would be easy to let him into her heart just a little bit. Seeing the scars on his body had touched a soft core inside her, knowing that they had come from his father had appalled her.

  She tried to imagine the little boy he’d been, a boy who had a father who abused him. Even though Meredith had grown up without the benefit of her mother, she’d had the love of both her father and Smokey.

  Still, it would be foolish to let Chase into her heart in any small way. That path led to heartache, and she wasn’t masochistic enough to want to consciously walk there.

  She was about to put all the items back into the box when she realized there were several yellowing folded pieces of paper still in the bottom. She pulled out the first and carefully opened it. Her heart leaped into her throat.

  “I’ve been waiting for you for a very, very long time. You are my destiny.”

  She stared at the note, and her fingers began to tremble. It was the same. The words and the block lettering were the very same as the notes that had been left on her car windshield.

  Scarcely breathing, she set the note aside and reached for another of the papers. The second piece of paper made her heart race so fast she feared she was going to be sick.

  “You will be mine forever.”

  The familiar words shot a trembling through her body. The same. These notes were identical to the ones she had received.

  There was one piece of paper left in the box and she stared at it for a long moment, afraid to open it, afraid of what it might say. And yet there was a perverse curiosity that needed to be fed, an overwhelming need to know what might come next.

  She picked up the piece of paper. The yellow, brittle paper felt evil in her fingers. She opened it and stared at the block letters.

  “It’s time.”

  Horror edged through her as her brain made the logical connection. Somebody had been stalking her mother, and her mother had wound up murdered. That same somebody was stalking Meredith.

  Bli
nded by fear, she whirled around and screamed as her shoulders were grabbed by firm big hands.

  Chapter 8

  “Whoa,” Chase exclaimed as he found himself suddenly looking at the business end of a 9 mm gun. “A little jumpy, are we?”

  “What are you doing out here sneaking up on me? I could have shot you.” Her voice trembled as she lowered the gun.

  “I came out here to tell you if you didn’t get back to the house you’d miss breakfast.” He frowned, noticing her face was bleached of color. “Are you all right?”

  “No. No, I’m not.” Her green eyes held fear that forced a flurry of adrenaline through him.

  “What’s wrong, Meredith?” Her utter stillness and blanched features caused a rising tension in him. Something had happened, something bad.

  “I think my secret admirer is the man who murdered my mother.”

  She couldn’t have surprised him more if she’d told him that she had been impregnated by a marauding alien. “What are you talking about?”

  She tucked the gun in the back of her jeans, then grabbed his hand and led him to the sofa. Her ice-cold hand trembled in his. “I was going through a box of my mother’s things and I found these.” She handed him three pieces of old, yellowed paper.

  He read each one, then looked back at her. “Rather troubling, but what does this have to do with you?”

  “I got notes.” She sank to the sofa and buried her face in her hands.

  “You got notes?” He waited for her to continue.

  “Just like these. Oh God, he killed my mother and now he wants me.”

  “Meredith, what are you talking about? What notes did you get? When?” He felt as if he had entered a movie halfway through and now had to play catch-up. Chase didn’t like to play catch-up. “Meredith, answer me,” he said impatiently.

  He set the papers on the arm of the sofa, then sat next to her and pulled her hands away from her face. “What notes?”

  As he stared at her she visibly pulled herself together. She straightened her back and some of the color returned to her cheeks. “I got the first one the night of the Fall Festival dance. When I went to my car to go home it was stuck beneath the windshield. ‘I’ve been waiting for you for a very, very long time. You are my destiny.’ That’s what it said.”

  He still held on to her hands. It was like holding two ice cubes. “And the next note?”

  “I got it yesterday when I was in town. It was on my windshield when I got ready to come home. It said ‘You will be mine,’ just like the notes that I found in the box. They were written in the same kind of block lettering as the ones I found in my mother’s box.” Her eyes were dark with a simmering fear. “I haven’t gotten the third note yet.”

  “Why haven’t you told me about the notes before now?” He rubbed her hands, trying to warm them up.

  She caught her bottom lip with her teeth, for a moment looking more vulnerable than he’d ever seen her. “I thought they were love notes from a secret admirer. I was embarrassed by them. I thought they were a little bit weird, but nothing to be worried about.”

  “We still don’t know that they’re anything to worry about,” he said. He wanted to take the fear out of her eyes. He needed to reassure her despite the cold, hard knot of apprehension that lay heavy in his chest. “We don’t know exactly when your mother got those notes or that they were written by her killer. We don’t want to jump to conclusions before we have any facts.”

  Some of the sharp edge of fear left her eyes but no warmth crept back into her hands. “You’ll probably think I’m crazy, but I’ve felt it. For the last month I’ve felt it getting closer to me.”

  “What? Felt what?”

  She licked her lips, as if they were painfully dry. “Evil.” The word whispered from her as if forced out against her will.

  Meredith West was not a woman given to dramatics. In the brief time he’d known her, she wasn’t given to histrionics or exaggeration. The knot in his chest grew a little bigger.

  “Come on, let’s get out of here.” He released her hands and stood. “I think you should go talk to the sheriff. Do you still have the notes you got?”

  She nodded and also stood. “They’re in a drawer in my bedroom.”

  He grabbed the notes from the arm of the sofa. “Then we’ll take them and these and let the sheriff know what’s going on.”

  “He won’t be able to do anything,” she said, her voice sounding stronger than it had before. She locked up the shed and they began the walk back to the ranch house.

  “That may be true, but it doesn’t hurt to have it on record,” he replied.

  “I don’t want anyone to know about this.” She shot him a quick glance. “I don’t want to worry my father and I sure don’t want to stir up my brothers.” A hint of stubbornness crept into her voice. “This is my business and I’ll handle it.”

  “There might come a time when you have to tell them,” he replied.

  “When that time comes I’ll deal with it.”

  “I’ll ride into town with you to see the sheriff,” he said.

  He thought she might protest, but instead she flashed him a look of gratitude. “I would appreciate it.”

  “Why don’t we head into town now and I’ll buy you breakfast at the café after we talk to Sheriff Ramsey.”

  “That sounds like a deal,” she replied.

  They walked for a few minutes in silence. Although Chase had tried his best to waylay her fears, to convince her that just because she’d gotten the same notes as her mother that didn’t mean the same fate awaited her.

  Still, even as he’d told her that, told himself that, he couldn’t help but wonder what might happen if and when she got the third note.

  “It’s time.”

  He didn’t know what those words meant, but he had a sick feeling that it wasn’t good.

  Even though Meredith appreciated how Chase had tried to alleviate her fears, his rational words had done little to do the trick.

  When they got back to the house, she asked her father when the boxes had been packed away in the shed. He told her that her mother had packed and sent them to the shed two days before her death.

  This information only intensified the bad feeling she had of impending doom. Now, driving into town with Chase in the passenger seat, she mentally repeated all the things Chase had said to her.

  There was no reason to believe that the notes had anything to do with her mother’s death—except she believed they did. There was no way to know exactly when her mother might have received the notes in relationship to her murder. And yet Meredith felt the connection in her very bones, in her very soul.

  Evidence didn’t always matter. Sometimes you had to go with your gut instinct, and Meredith’s gut instinct was screaming that her mother’s murderer now had her in his sights.

  “You know it won’t help going to Sheriff Ramsey,” she said, needing conversation to halt the thoughts whirling around in her head. “There’s not much he’s going to be able to do about this.”

  “I know, but I still think it’s a good idea to make a report. Besides, who knows what he might be able to find out.” He was silent for a moment then continued, “You know, maybe your mother had a secret admirer. Maybe it’s the same person as your secret admirer, but that doesn’t mean he’s a killer.”

  She flashed him a quick glance. “Do you really believe that?”

  “I’m not sure what to believe at this point,” he admitted. “But I think it would be a mistake to jump to any conclusions. Right now all we know for sure is that it looks like a person who wrote notes to your mother is also writing notes to you.”

  She parked her car in front of the sheriff’s office and grabbed the two plastic bags on the seat between them. One contained the notes she had found in her mother’s box. The other contained the ones she’d received. “Let’s get this over with,” she said and got out of the car.

  Molly Richmond, the dispatcher and receptionist, greeted them and
told them Sheriff Ramsey was in his office. She led them down the hallway to his inner sanctum.

  He rose in surprise as Meredith and Chase walked in. “Meredith…Mr. McCall, what brings you here?” He gestured them into the two chairs in front of his desk and shut the back door that he’d apparently had open to allow in some fresh air.

  Chase remained silent as Meredith explained to Sheriff Ramsey about the notes she’d received, the roses and the notes she’d found in the box of her mother’s things.

  When she’d finished, the sheriff leaned back in his chair, a deep frown cutting across his broad forehead. “I’ll send those notes to the lab in Oklahoma City and see if they can pull anything off them.”

  “My fingerprints will be all over them,” she said.

  “And so will mine.” Chase grimaced, as if irritated with himself for touching the notes.

  “Then we’ll see if the lab can get anyone else’s off them, although I’ve got to tell you I don’t have much hope. If what you think is true, if the person who wrote those notes is the same person who killed your mom, then he’s been smart enough to have eluded everyone for twenty-five years. I figure he’s smart enough not to leave behind any fingerprints.”

  “Of course, there’s no way of knowing if the person who wrote these notes is the same person who might have killed Elizabeth,” Chase said. “We just thought it was important to make a report of what we found and about the notes Meredith has been receiving.”

  “Absolutely,” Sheriff Ramsey agreed. He looked at Meredith for a long moment, his expression soft. “I was the one who found your mom that night. I was a young deputy and I saw her car off at the side of the road and went to investigate.”

  All his features tightened and he shook his head. “I’ll never forget it. There were sacks of groceries in the back of the car, and she was laid out on the ground like she was sleeping.” He shook his head again as if to rid his brain of a bad memory. “We investigated her death vigorously at the time.” He looked at Chase. “Did she show you the file?”