She shook her head in disbelief. “You’re the worst defender ever. I should have called Rex.”
As she waved for him to follow her toward the back, he laughed. “You know that would have been a terrible idea.”
She paused at the kitchen door. “At least he would be armed with my mom.”
“Who would be armed with a shotgun and complete indiscretion. We know.”
Jessica nodded for Quentin to go first through the door, and he nodded casually, but she didn’t fail to see his hand slip into the pocket with the pepper spray.
It only took a minute for him to clear the kitchen, then they took a seat at the tiny fold-out table as she tried to slow her racing heart.
“You gonna show me the letter?” he asked.
She pulled it out of her jeans pocket and flung it at him.
When he was finished, he nodded, folded it neatly and said, “Yeah, that’s fucking weird, all right.” Then he shrugged. “What do you want me to do about it?”
She hadn’t thought about that. All her focus was on getting someone else here, not what they would do once they arrived. “I guess just agree that it’s fucked up.”
“You could have snapped a photo of this and sent it to literally anyone to get that opinion back.”
“Fine. Would you just hang around while I close, then maybe walk me to my car?”
He nodded. “Of course. So long as the stalker stays downwind of us, I got you covered.” He held up the pink sprayer and sighed when she remained sitting, not yet ready to get to work. “So, I see I’ve been replaced by Jameson.”
She laughed. “I hope you can find the strength to move on.”
“I think I’ll make it.” He checked his phone subtly, then said, “How’s all this going?” He motioned broadly to the surroundings.
“Great.”
Quentin said nothing.
“Okay, I’m so fucking stressed and, like, ninety percent sure I’m behind on a handful of major payments, but I haven’t had a chance to sit down and go through the bills and update my ledgers, but first I have a bunch of transfers to make, because the money is coming in, but I’ve been so behind that I didn’t even bother checking on late fees, because what was I going to do about that anyway?”
Quentin held up a hand to stop her. “Bring me a laptop and the bills. Write down all your login information on a notepad, then finish closing this place down.”
Jessica stomped her foot petulantly and her shoulders sagged. “You sure I can’t just hire you to do everything for me?”
“I dunno. Let me see how much money you’re making, then I’ll tell you if you can afford me.”
She already knew that wasn’t a possibility, but she dumped all her unopened bills on the table next to him, wrote down the logins for every bank account and supplier she could think of, then set out to work cleaning the kitchen.
Hours later, she brought him another cup of coffee from the cheap coffee maker she kept in the back for long nights such as this.
Quentin took it gladly.
“How’s it looking?” she asked.
He dug the butt of his hand into one of his eye sockets, yawning. “You want the good news or the bad news first?”
“Good news.”
He squinted at her. “Who the hell picks the good news first?”
She blinked. “Me, I guess.”
“No, that’s dumb. Never pick the good news first. Leave it for last. You know, sometimes, Jess, I think you might actually be a masochist.” He clicked the touchpad, mumbling, “Bad news for last. Jesus…” Then he flipped the screen around. “Okay, bad news is that you still owe this much for mortgage and suppliers.” He pointed to the amount on the spreadsheet.
“Ew.”
“That’s one word for it.”
“But I’ve made so much money since I started hanging around with Jameson. Are you sure I’m still that far behind? I figured I’d be all caught up.”
“Listen, I get it. And you did double your sales in the last couple days, so things are looking up for you to be in good standing in a month. You ready for the good news?”
“Hell yeah, I am.” She was ready to punch something, so good news was welcome.
“I told you.” He pointed a finger at her. “Can you imagine if I saved that bit for last?”
“Just get on with it.”
“The good news is that you were four months behind on a couple accounts, and most of these ‘bills’ were actually threats to take you to collection. But I paid all those off, and now your business won’t be destroyed.”
“Yay?” she said, feeling weariness grab hold of her internal organs.
“Major yay.” He paused. “I hate to lecture, Jess, but you can’t let it get to this again. Your business is finally making money, and, you know, stalkers aside, you seem to be enjoying it. You have to hire someone else to take care of this on a regular basis. It’s not that difficult. Hell, I’ve never done it before, but I figured it out in”—he glanced at the clock above the door—“oh hell. Nine hours? Wow.”
She cringed. “Yeah. Sorry. You were so into it, I figured I’d get started on prep for tomorrow since I was already caffeinated and way too spacey to drive home safely. And the last thing I need is to call a ride share at this hour and have it turn out to be whoever left that note on my door.”
Quentin nodded sympathetically. “That’s actually not a bad idea for a stalker. Just hang around, waiting for someone to call for a car.”
“Right?”
He took two more long gulps from his mug then stood. “You know I’d love to stay longer, but unfortunately, I have to be at work in a couple hours.” He adjusted his shirt and stretched his neck. “I guess you don’t need me to walk you to your car, then?”
“No. I’m just gonna stay here.”
He tilted his head. “You okay being here by yourself?”
Maybe it was that all the adrenaline had left her limbs and if someone decided to break in to attack her, she was prepared to simply give in and accept her fate, but the threat of the stalker seemed far away now, almost an impossibility. Maybe someone was just playing stalker. No one really did that sort of thing, right?
“Yeah, I’m fine. I’m just gonna keep working. I open in a couple hours anyway.”
“Okay, well, if you need anything …”
“Call someone else. I got it.”
He winked and shot her a finger gun. “That’s my girl.”
After a quick hug, he let himself out through the front, as Jessica began preheating the ovens. She held onto the mental note to lock the door behind him just as soon as she was done with a few things here. Realistically, a couple minutes didn’t matter.
As she’d poured the last banana nut muffin batter into the tin, there was a hard, quick knock at the front, and she heard the door open and shut.
She searched the surfaces nearby for what Quentin might have forgotten and returned for. Nothing caught her eye.
When the normal time frame for him to appear again in the kitchen came and went, she was pleasantly surprised to discover that her body did still have some adrenaline left, and she quickly grabbed her phone and a large bread knife from the counter, wondering absently if the serrated edges would necessitate a sawing motion for effective self-defense, and crept out of the kitchen and into the cafe. As she’d suspected, Quentin wasn’t there. He would have announced himself, anyway.
A powerful chill ran down her spine when she saw that there was yet another note taped to the front door.
Only, this time, it was on the inside.
She retreated quickly into the kitchen, put her back against a wall with the bread knife in front of her and did just as Quentin had instructed. She called someone else.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The red and blue lights washed over the interior of Jessica’s bakery from the curb out front. Deciding it was best not to pop up from her hiding place and scare a couple armed officers, she put herself in plain view and set
down the bread knife before they got out of their vehicles.
The first officer she saw looked better built for running an ultra marathon than taking down thugs on the streets. The caps on his short sleeves flowed loosely around his scrawny, pale arms, and even with the vest on, the circumference of his chest left much to be desired.
This? This was who the department had sent over to help her deal with a deranged stalker?
The officer introduced himself with a deep, robust tone. “Officer Downey.”
Jessica nodded and shook his hand. His grip was more like his body than his voice.
When the other officer stepped out of her vehicle, Jessica had a jolt of recognition. It wasn’t until she’d opened the door and greeted the officer that she noticed the name tag and could complete the mental connection.
“Ms. McCloud. So we meet again,” said the female officer.
“Hi, Officer McBride.” Jessica’s first encounter with McBride had been brief, taking place in the parking lot outside Bat-Ass Brew after an unfortunate resurrection of Rebel the barista. She wished she could meet the woman under better circumstances for once, but that wasn’t the nature of calling the cops, she supposed. “Come on inside.”
“This the note?” she pointed at it on the door where Jessica had left it, being afraid to touch it for a multitude of unreasonable reasons.
“Yeah.”
While Officer Downey took a look around, Officer McBride opened the letter and read it through. When she was done, she folded it back gently, her eyebrows raised as she whistled. “That is one hell of a Shakespeare you got pining after you.” She held the letter out toward Jessica. “You should read it.”
“No thanks.”
McBride shrugged and held onto it. “You’re quite the shit magnet, Ms. McCloud.”
“McBride!” Downey warned.
“Sorry,” she replied mockingly. She turned to Jessica again. “A poop magnet.”
“It’s fine,” Jessica said, “and you’re right.”
“First you gotta clean up the mess down at Bat-Ass Brew and now this? I’m guessing that’s not even the extent of it, either. That’s just what I’ve responded to.”
Jessica nodded. “Yeah. That’s only the tip of the shitberg.”
McBride held up the evidence. “You got more of these?”
“But of course.” Jessica paused at the door, letting McBride enter the kitchen ahead of her.
Once Jessica had handed over the other two and McBride was done reading them, she said, “You’re just now calling us?”
“I didn’t want to overreact.”
McBride frowned then said, “Yeah, I get it. This one wouldn’t”—she jabbed a thumb at Downey who was busy searching the walk-in freezer—“for obvious reasons. Look, I’d put money on this being a man who stuck you with these.”
Jessica blinked. “I hadn’t even considered the possibility that it wasn’t.”
“Why would you? Women don’t even feel this sense of entitlement over their own bodies, let alone other people’s. We got better things to think about, like trying not to be controlled by men.”
“For god’s sake, McBride,” groaned Downey.
“Focus on what you’re doing. I think you mighta missed a drawer back there.” She returned her attention to Jessica. “Any idea who might be behind this?”
“None.”
“I noticed you have a camera set up out there. Is it just for show?”
Jessica felt a blush come over her face. “That hadn’t occurred to me. No, it records.”
“Does it erase every so often?”
“I don’t think so. It’s backed up to the cloud.”
McBride nodded. “Not sure what that means, but let’s have a look at it.”
While she was glad all the money she’d put into her security system wasn’t for naught, it was obviously a mixed blessing, like having flood insurance pay out. She’d never needed to access the footage before, and the process required an embarrassingly long call with a customer service rep before she could log in and begin sorting through all the files to find the right time code. Eventually, she let McBride take over.
“That him?” the officer pointed to the screen. Jessica leaned in close and could feel Downey hovering over her shoulder. “No. That’s Quentin. He came over right after I found the second note.”
McBride side-eyed her. “Any reason to believe he might be the one leaving the notes?”
Jessica chuckled. “No. He’s not afraid to say what’s on his mind to a person’s face. But it should be right after he leaves that the person comes. Just a few minutes. I thought Quentin had left something and that was who came back in.”
As it turned out, it was actually a full ten minutes between when Quentin left and when another figure appeared on the screen. “There,” she said. McBride moved forward frame by frame to get a clear angle on the face obscured beneath the Houston Texan’s baseball cap. “Looks like maybe white or light skinned Hispanic,” she relayed to the others. She pressed the arrow keys to move back and forth between a span of five frames. “Yeah, one of these will be the clearest, but it still doesn’t give us much. He was aware of the camera and avoided the angle. What about the other two letters? Maybe we caught something then.”
It took a while of sorting through old footage to locate the others, and by the time they’d reviewed all three, they had only grabbed a slightly better angle to identify him. In all three, he had the Houston Texan’s hat, but other than his presumed sports fandom, they didn’t know much about him right off the bat other than he stood about five-foot-ten.
While Downey didn’t strike Jessica as a rookie, McBride seemed to have seniority, and she stuck him with the report. Before Jess knew it, two hours had passed. “Sorry to keep you so long,” she said.
McBride waved her off. “This is nothing. Before I got here, I spent four hours on a noise disturbance call. Guy wouldn’t turn down the radio. Insisted it was his God-given right as an American to blast country music in his own house whenever he wanted. I told him the law didn’t agree. He eventually asked for a male officer instead, and I was happy to comply, and now here I am.” She grinned.
The backdoor of the kitchen burst open like a gunshot, and McBride’s right hand dropped down toward her belt.
“She ain’t done nothing wrong! You’ll have to arrest me too!”
“Mom!” Jessica lunged forward, intentionally putting herself between Destinee and McBride until she could be sure the shotgun had stayed in the car. “It’s fine. They’re not arresting me.”
Destinee pulled up short, her pupils large, her head jerking around like an agitated horse. “What the hell’s happening, then? Someone get murdered?”
“Everything’s fine, Mrs. McCloud,” said Officer McBride.
Jessica stepped to the side as Destinee narrowed her eyes at the female cop. “Miss. Not missus. Or just Destinee.”
Jessica hastily hissed, “She’s cool, Mom. Be nice,” as Destinee approached and shook hands with McBride.
“Nice to meet you, Destinee. If you want, you can call me Misty.”
Destinee continued inspecting the female officer closely before she cracked a wide grin and said, “Damn, you got a cheap stripper name, too, don’t ya?”
McBride laughed. “Ain’t it the truth!” Where had that Texan accent come from? She hadn’t had it just a minute ago.
But Jessica wasn’t going to complain, because Destinee and Officer McBride had gone from potential enemies to friends in six seconds flat, and that meant Jessica wouldn’t have to be the one to fill her mother in on the situation. Considering the severity of it, it was probably best someone with handcuffs and a Taser be the one to break the news.
At half past five, Jessica figured she could use a little fresh air to wake her up before another long shift. With the cop lights still flashing out front, there was little chance of anyone creeping around. She could risk it.
She stepped out the back door, wishing not for the
first time that she’d taken up smoking, and stuffed her hands into her pockets, leaning back against the building, letting the cool October air bat at her hair and shirt.
A car door shut, forcing her eyes open, and she saw Rex pacing over.
“Morning,” Jessica said, surprised to see him.
He crossed his arms over his chest and bounced on his toes anxiously once he reached her, shooting glances at the back entrance. “They arrested her, didn’t they?”
Jessica shook her head. “Surprisingly, no. She’s just made a new best friend.”
“What’s going on?”
Exhausted, Jessica shrugged. “Some dude is stalking me, leaving gross notes.”
Rex’s jaw dropped along with his crossed arms. He set his hands firmly on Jessica’s shoulders, and she wondered briefly if he was about to give her a pep talk before the state championship. But instead, he said, “On behalf of my entire hemisphere of the broad gender wheel, I am truly sorry. It’s just not fair that so many men feel a deeply ingrained sense of entitlement over the bodies and choices of women. He has no right to control you through fear, and I truly hope I get a chance to meet him so I can rip his balls off before your mother shoots him and ends up in prison.”
“Um. Thanks, Rex. I appreciate the sentiment.”
“I mean it,” he said, shaking her gently. “If I find him, I’m gonna castrate him. And not because I don’t believe women are capable of that, but because society has put the burden of cleaning up messes men make on women for time out of mind, and I want to do my part as a cis male to help clean up what I’ve unintentionally contributed to all these years.”
“Yeah, that’s …” Her words caught in her throat when Rex sucked in air through his nose, staring up briefly at the pre-dawn sky before meeting her eyes again. His were now red.
“This is something I’ve been meaning to say to you for a while, McCloud.”
Oh no. This can’t be good.
“It’s been weighing on my conscience. What I was just talking about, with women cleaning up the messes of men?”
“Yuh-huh?”
In the Details Page 22