by Emily James
It was almost 8:00 by the time we finished. Even with the gaps, there’d been a disturbing number of messages with similar handwriting and tone.
I’d texted with Mark a couple of times during the process, and he’d told me to take as long as I needed to finish. He blamed his sunburn for also destroying his appetite. He was considering raiding the hotel ice machine to create an ice pack.
Ahanti carried boxes back to their stack while I finished the one belonging to the month she’d left Cary’s studio to start Skin Canvas.
I was down to only two items left in the box. It looked like he might not have written her that month. According to Ahanti, there hadn’t been any message prior to her leaving Cary’s studio, either. That would make sense if her stalker were Cary. He wouldn’t have been stalking her prior to their romantic and business break-up.
The second last letter was from a woman. She’d signed her name.
The final card wasn’t signed. And the handwriting seemed to match. I might have found the first one he’d ever sent. It’d been eerie working back through the messages and seeing his progression in reverse. This note could give us a clue to when he moved from interest to obsession with Ahanti.
It didn’t automatically cross Cary off the list because it’d been sent during a month when she was still at his studio part of the time. He could have sent it after she left. We’d have our trigger. We’d know it was Cary.
The note was a short one—congratulating Ahanti on the change she’d made.
My lungs felt like they shrunk down to half capacity. Cary wouldn’t have congratulated her on leaving him.
When Ahanti had her back turned, I snapped a photo of the card and tucked it into the freezer bag. Hopefully she wouldn’t want to see it and dig it out.
“I found one from right after you stopped working with Cary.” I kept my voice casual. Controlling my intonation would probably never be easy, but it seemed like my mom had been right that, the more I practiced, the better I got. Whether improving my ability to deceive was a good thing or a bad one was a matter of perspective. “At least we know when it started.”
She yawned and didn’t ask what was in the note. Since I hadn’t specifically mentioned it, she probably assumed it was identical to the rest. Until I could talk this over with Mark, I needed to let her think that.
Because if Cary turned out not to be her stalker, we had a much bigger problem.
The man in all these notes knew her well. He was determined.
And he was most likely one of the two men she was closest to—Geoff or Terrance.
Over our takeout dinner, I caught Mark up on the notes I’d taken and showed him the picture of the first missive. It seemed like a good thing that Mark had stayed behind. He could barely move without wincing. His arms were as red as his neck.
As soon as I finished eating, I grabbed the tube of aloe vera and made him sit on the edge of the bed.
“That first note is innocent enough,” Mark said. “But you’re right. Unless your PI finds something solid to show Cary’s her stalker, I don’t think it’s him. Besides, if he was trying to use the card to make nice, he would have signed his name.”
I squirted a dollop of gel onto my fingers. “Maybe he assumed she’d recognize his writing.”
I touched my fingers to Mark’s skin. He gasped and recoiled.
How badly burned was he? He was a doctor, so he should know if it was bad enough to go to an ER, but he did always say he had more experience with dead people than with live ones as a medical examiner. “Should we have gotten this looked at?”
He stuck his arm back out. “It’s just cold.” He inclined his head toward where my phone rested on the bed, the picture of the first note still on the screen. “Would you recognize my handwriting?”
Yes jumped to my lips but stuck there. Mark and I texted and emailed and called each other, none of which involved writing by hand. I’d never even seen his handwriting, and we were engaged.
His lifted his shoulders a touch. “Because I wouldn’t recognize yours. People don’t write much out by hand anymore. Even most appointments are entered into computers or phones, and reminders are sent by text and email.”
It explained how this looked like someone Ahanti knew well and yet she didn’t recognize their handwriting at all.
I finished Mark’s first arm and moved on to the second one in silence. The thought that this might be someone other than Cary made my back and shoulders ache like I’d been trying to haul the sleigh my Clydesdale horses pulled in the winter back home.
My fingers stalled near his elbow. “Did you think Geoff was telling the truth about why he was outside Ahanti’s apartment?”
If my hand hadn’t been on his arm, I wouldn’t have felt his muscles tense, the movement was so subtle. “I don’t know him well, but it’s something I would have done.”
It was something he’d done on a smaller level. Back when I’d thought he was married and I told him I couldn’t be around him anymore, he’d still sat outside the animal shelter until Russ arrived to make sure a murderer didn’t catch me there alone.
“You introduced them, didn’t you?” Mark asked. “So Geoff didn’t even know her back when she was working with Cary.”
As far as I knew, I’d introduced them that night we accidentally bumped into him at the movies.
I wished I could shut off the part of my brain trained by my parents to think up all the alternative explanations. Like that he’d only pretended to bump into us there. Like that he’d actually followed her there, hoping I’d introduce them and ask him to sit with us, which is exactly what I did.
“I started going to Geoff as my chiropractor because we always seemed to be standing in line at the same time at the Starbucks right down the street from Ahanti and my apartment building. I’d never been to a chiropractor before, but I’d been in pain since I fell off my bike.”
I crawled up onto the bed behind Mark so that I could work on his neck, but I kept my hands on his shoulders for a second instead. I wanted to hear his reaction.
“Was his office near there?” His voice was a little too measured.
His current offices weren’t, nor was his apartment. “At the time he said they were but that he was in the process of changing locations…I never saw the old office that he claimed was nearby.”
“Have you asked the private investigator to look into Geoff as well?”
I hadn’t yet. I’d intended to after our lunch meeting, but then the text from Ahanti drove it from my mind. “I’ll call him first thing tomorrow.”
“We’d still have to explain why he’d have sent Ahanti a picture of him with his own face burnt out, though. Even if we could establish that he might have seen her somewhere, become obsessed, and then been looking for an introduction, that photo doesn’t fit.”
The only thing I could think of was that Geoff was getting jealous of how much of Ahanti’s attention was going elsewhere, onto her clients, onto wedding plans, onto hunting for a new apartment. “Maybe he thought she was too focused on other things. If someone threatened him, it would bring them closer together. But it backfired on him.”
I gently applied the aloe vera to the back of Mark’s neck. Along with talking to the PI, I’d also have to find a way to subtly ask Ahanti how the wedding plans were going prior to this and how Geoff was handling all the stress.
Mark snagged my hand with his, stopping my progress on his neck. “Might be time for you to go back to your room, or I’m going to want you to stay.”
The lines we’d drawn in our relationship were getting harder and harder to maintain the longer we were together and the closer we got to our wedding. Sticking to what we believed meant that we had to respect when the other person was tempted to cross those lines. I’d been thinking about sunburns and stalkers, but apparently, my ministrations had taken Mark’s mind somewhere else.
I capped the aloe vera gel, handed it to him, and kissed him gently on the cheek. “I’ll see you in the mo
rning.”
When this was all over, I’d turn my attention to planning a honeymoon for Mark and me in whatever country had the lowest murder rate.
9
Mark settled in beside me on the bow of my parents’ yacht. His sunburn had faded some after two days, and now he complained about it itching more than hurting. We’d made sure to pack extra sunscreen and a hat before we left yesterday for the weekend trip.
My parents had actually taken a weekend off to spend it with us on the Chesapeake. It was a minor miracle.
Mark smiled big enough that his dimples came out in full force, warming me more than the summer sun did. “You had a rough childhood, didn’t you?”
My return laugh stuck in my throat. At one time, I’d thought I had. My parents had been always working and were emotionally unavailable when they were home. I’d always felt the pressure of living up to their seemingly unreachable expectations.
Now that I had seen more of life outside of the wealthy DC area and the equally wealthy vacation spots we’d been to, I had a new appreciation for how easy my life had been. I could have easily turned out spoiled and entitled had my parents not emphasized the value of hard work and responsibility, and had my Uncle Stan not taken the time to show me that even those were worthless if you didn’t also have compassion.
I leaned my face back and let the breeze ruffle through my hair. I’d almost forgotten how much I loved being on the water. Despite owning this boat, my parents rarely had time to use it.
“Maybe we should have a boat someday. Not one this size, obviously, but I’d like to be able to take our kids out onto the lake on weekends.”
I glanced over at Mark, but both his dimples and smile were gone. There was a tenseness to his jaw that sent a chill over me from the inside out.
He took my hand and ran his thumb over my knuckles. “Is what you were raised with the kind of life you want?”
“Why are you asking that?”
He glanced up at the fly bridge where my dad captained the boat. “Turned out it wasn’t just your dad and me golfing on Thursday. He’d also invited DC’s chief medical examiner and the head of Howard University Hospital’s pathology department.”
Little black spots burst in my vision like I’d been staring at reflections off the water too long. I closed my eyes, but they only turned into colored opposites. I forced them open again. “He made you an offer. My dad.”
Mark nodded. “He said he wanted me to see the kind of connections he has so I’d know that I could take my career in whatever direction I wanted if I chose not to take the toxicology research position. He’d make sure I got whatever job I wanted in the area.”
The choice words that swam to the front of my mind were ones I rarely contemplated saying. None of them, as my grandmother would have said, were fit for a lady.
Mark’s grip tightened on my hand. “He also said that one day you’d regret leaving DC and the type of life you could have had here if you worked at their firm as a partner.”
That was the first I’d ever heard about me becoming a partner in their firm. Theoretically, that’s what they’d always intended, but I’d assumed that when they saw how inept I was in front of a jury, they’d changed their plans. Either way, it was another case of my parents planning my future without ever consulting me.
I didn’t blame Mark for wondering if what my dad said about me was true. Mark had known me for less than a year. My dad had known me my whole life. It’d be natural for Mark to wonder if my dad knew me better.
My dad could get into people’s heads and twist their minds around until they believed everything he told them. His forceful personality, logical-sounding arguments, and charisma worked on people in his everyday life just as much as they worked on jury members when he wanted them to.
This had to stop. My dad wasn’t a man who understood the word no, but it was time he learned. “It sounds like my dad and a need to have a talk.”
I tried to stand but only made it to my knees. Mark kept hold of my hand. “Not today. Your mom took today off of work the same as your dad, and I think she’s enjoying having you back.”
I slumped back to the deck. As much as I wanted to toss my dad over the side into the Chesapeake, my mom hadn’t been to blame this time. When she suggested Mark for the research position, she’d given us an option, and she hadn’t bribed and blackmailed like my dad. It wouldn’t be right to ruin this day for her. It took a lot to get her away from work, even on a Saturday, and I had to believe she’d done it out of love for me.
My phone vibrated in my pocket, jerking me out of my mulling. I twitched. I’d gotten used to all the dead zones in Fair Haven. I hadn’t expected to get cell phone reception out here.
My caller display flashed a picture of Ahanti. That was weird. She knew we were out on the water today, and she should be at work trying to catch up on the clients she’d had to reschedule earlier this week.
My mouth went dry. The only reason I could think of for her to be calling me was that her stalker had done something new.
I tapped the answer icon.
“Nicole?” her voice wobbled. “It wasn’t Cary.”
Crap. Sometimes it wasn’t nice to be right. “What happened?”
“I’m at the police station.”
Too many questions ran through my mind to pick one. Had he left something disturbing enough that she’d felt the need to take it in immediately? How did she know it hadn’t come from Cary? Why had she gone to the station rather than calling the police to come to her?
She sounded more frazzled than would result from another card.
“Why are you at the police station? Are you okay?”
“Geoff’s here too. They wouldn’t let me talk to him.”
Double crap. I did not like the direction this was headed.
I glanced back. The bow of the boat wasn’t technically set up for passengers to ride on. I’d just always liked it, and it was flat enough to be safe. But getting up here required a narrow path and two hands to hold the railing. I couldn’t make it back to the actual deck with one hand without risking dumping myself into the water. If I went overboard, it’d only delay our return even more.
Please ask my dad to turn around, I mouthed to Mark.
My dad wouldn’t normally change his plans, but I was wagering he’d be very accommodating to Mark right now, given that he wanted to woo him to the dark side.
I shifted my phone to the other ear. “Ahanti, I need you to start over. I don’t understand what’s going on.”
“Cary’s dead.”
For the second time today, I thought about using a word stronger than crap. There was only one reason the police would have brought both Ahanti and Geoff down to the station for that.
They thought one of them had killed him.
10
By the time my dad docked the boat and we made the almost four-hour drive from Hampton Roads back to the city, it was well past supper—a fact my dad had been sure to point out to me, along with how the police would have given them both a meal and then collected their trash to take a sneaky DNA sample.
I’d told him that neither Ahanti nor Geoff had killed Cary and so it wouldn’t matter.
The look he’d given me had clearly said I was too naïve and needed to stop trusting people so much.
For my mom’s sake, I kept my response to myself. One thing I wasn’t was naïve. No one could see as many bodies as I had in the past year and remain naïve. But, to my dad, trusting anyone other than your spouse—and sometimes even trusting them—made a person naïve.
Sufficed to say, the drive back was a quiet one except for the stilted conversation my mom and Mark attempted for the first hour.
Halfway there, I got a text from Mandy, asking if she should throw the nylon leashes out. They were a menace and a danger. They could probably saw wood. My response that they weren’t a menace where I’d left them behind my dog food bag might have been a little harsher than the situation warranted. I had a nig
gling suspicion they’d be gone by the time I got home anyway.
When my dad stopped the car in front of the hotel, my mom swiveled in her seat to face me in the back. “I have an outfit in the trunk that I picked up from the dry cleaners yesterday. Did you want me to join you?”
The muscles in my whole upper body tensed like she’d thrown something at me.
She’s not saying you’re incapable, the little voice of reason in my head said. She’s offering because there’s two of them and one of you.
“Yes, please.”
My dad said nothing, not even goodbye, as we got out of the car, but the self-satisfied smile on his face made me want to kick his tires.
He thought this proved him right. About me. About everything. He thought he’d won.
It was another forty-five minutes before my mom and I were dressed and to the police station in our rental car.
As much as I hated my dad’s smug attitude, I had to admit that I liked the new dynamic that my mom and I had developed while she was in Fair Haven. I’d thought it might have been an isolated situation, given that we were working for the police rather than against them, but I felt it here again. She treated me more as an equal and less as an inept protégée. During the ride, I briefed her on the situation.
As soon as we reached the station, an officer showed me into the interview room where Ahanti waited.
A half-empty water bottle sat on the table next to her, and she’d used the pad of paper and pen they’d left her to doodle intricate designs that looked a bit like those mandalas in the adult coloring books that everyone was so crazy about a couple of years ago. Some of her mascara had rubbed off onto the underside of her eyes, making her look even more tired and sad than she probably was.
Despite everything that had gone on between her and Cary, despite the suspicion that he might have been stalking her and might have threatened Geoff, I could almost see her thinking about the good times they’d had. He had helped her get her start. She had cared about him once.