by Curry, Edna
“I got a great new client and I want you to help me celebrate. I’ll tell you all about him when I see you. I’m going to be in the area Saturday night. Can I take you to dinner at the Lagoon? I hear you really like that restaurant.
“I’ll call you again tomorrow for your answer. I love you.”
Loni cringed as Hank made kissing noises and hung up. The answering machine clicked off. No way was she going out with him again. The man was loony-tunes.
The phone rang again and she stared at it, refusing to answer. Was he calling back?
Then she heard Matt’s voice saying, “Loni, it’s Matt. Are you okay?”
She gasped and grabbed the phone. “Oh, Matt! I’m so glad to hear your voice.” Her voice trembled with relief and tears ran down her cheeks.
“What’s the matter? It sounds like you’re crying.”
“Hank called again.”
“Another disguised voice?”
“No, he’s doing his sweet-talk act now. But he says he wants to take me out to dinner Saturday.”
“Stay put and keep your doors locked. I’ll be right out, okay?”
“All right.” She heard him hang up the phone and went to put on some coffee.
Why hadn’t she gotten a security system in place as soon as she’d arrived here? She might have known he’d find her again. He always did.
When Loni heard a car outside a few minutes later, she went to the door and peeked through the small window. After making sure it was Matt, she opened the door.
Matt stepped inside, closed and locked the door, then took her in his arms.
She cuddled close; her face raised for his kiss, then hid her face against his chest. “I’m so scared. How did you know I needed you?”
Matt kissed her and stroked her hair, wondering if he dared tell her the truth. He’d suddenly just known she was afraid of something and needed him. “I had an urge to talk to you,” he said, sidestepping her question.
“I’m glad,” she said, leaning back to look at him. “Why can’t the man leave me alone?”
“I called Ben on my cell phone on the way out here and told him Hank had called. He’s busy with an accident right now, but he told me to tape the message for him before you erase it. Your answering machine is digital, isn’t it, so that if you unplug it the message is gone?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have a tape player to tape it?”
“Yes, I think Aunt Dee has one in her bedroom. She liked to listen to books on tape when she couldn’t sleep at night. I’ll get it.” She went to the master bedroom and returned with the tape recorder. “I found a blank tape, too.”
“Good.” He took it from her and put it down on the coffee table. “You can use tapes of his phone calls for evidence of his harassment,” Matt said soothingly. “We have anti-stalking laws, but we need some proof that it’s Hank who is doing this to use them to stop him.”
He noticed she was shivering, her arms crossed in front of her. Leading her to the sofa, he sat and drew her onto his lap. “It’ll be okay, Loni. We’ll get a judge to issue a restraining order against him.”
Loni shook her head. “You don’t know Hank. That won’t stop him.”
What kind of man was this guy? Matt kissed her again and said softly, “Let me listen to the message, okay?”
Nodding, she stood and moved to the window to stare out into the night.
He rose and punched the play button, and listened to Hank’s message. He heard the pleasant invitation to dinner and frowned. Jealousy curled in his gut at Hank’s vow of love, uttered in such a familiar way, as though he’d said it often before. But Matt heard nothing threatening in the message. He set up the tape recorder and listened again as he recorded it.
“I don’t understand, Loni,” he said gently, pocketing the tape for the sheriff. “Hank only asks you out to dinner. What makes you think he is threatening you? Or that he’s the same man who left the weird, threatening message before? It doesn’t sound like the same person to me.”
She swung back to face him, angry now, her voice shrill. “It was Hank on the other messages, too! I know it was.”
“How do you know, Loni?”
“I’ve told him over and over I don’t want to go out with him. To leave me alone. He won’t stop calling me. He follows me from place to place. I’ve changed my phone number and even got unlisted numbers. Somehow, he finds out the number and calls me again.” She glanced around outside again, then pulled the draperies closed and paced to the opposite side of the room.
Matt watched her fidget, worried.
“After someone set fire to my apartment house, I moved to a hotel. He found the number there, too. I saw someone follow me in a car.”
“Did you see who? Or get a license number?”
“No. And he says he knows I like to go to the Lagoon. Maybe he was the guy who almost ran us off the road that first night. Doesn’t his comment suggest he knows I’ve been there before?”
“Yes, it does.”
“Well, how could he know that?”
“I don’t know. Come sit down, Loni.”
“All right.” She moved back to his side of the room, but sat in the blue easy chair, keeping the coffee table between them.
He looked at her encouragingly. “Maybe you’d better start at the beginning and tell me more about this. Where did you meet Hank? How long did you date?”
“We met in Chicago,” she said rubbing the tense muscles in the back of her neck. “I was working in a jewelry store and the owner hired him to do a web page for the store. Hank came to talk to us and take some pictures for the site. We started talking and he seemed very nice. He asked me to go for dinner after closing and I went. After that, he kept calling and we went out a few times, to dances and a couple of parties at some of my friends’ houses.”
“Were you close?” Matt asked, hating the curl of anger the question brought to his chest.
“No.” Loni shook her head. “Only casual friends. He was always very nice and I enjoyed dating, but I wasn’t in love with him.”
“But he didn’t feel the same? He says he loves you in his message.”
She lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know. After a couple dates, he started acting so possessive, hating to see me dance with any other man, wanting me to date only him and stuff like that. It made me nervous, so I broke it off.”
“And—?” Matt prompted.
She scowled at him. “And what?”
“Where were you? What did he say? Was he angry? He must have done something to make you feel threatened and to think he’s capable of doing all this.”
“We were at a table in a dance hall after a co-workers’ wedding. He didn’t like it that I’d danced with another friend from work. I told him I didn’t like being treated like his property. I said we were through.”
“What did he say to that?”
“At first he seemed angry and tried to change my mind. I refused and walked off to the ladies’ room. By the time I returned to the table, he’d cooled off and was very nice again.”
He tipped his head, disbelievingly. “That’s all? He accepted it just like that? Did you dance some more? Did you separate there or did he take you home?”
“We left a few minutes after I came back to the table. He’d ordered more drinks and acted nice. I thought he was going to be polite and civilized about it, so I let him take me home.”
She wasn’t looking at him, and her voice had grown quiet. He got the feeling there was more to this than she was telling him.
“Anything else happen that night?”
In a very low voice, she admitted, “I don’t know. I passed out in the car and woke up in my bed the next morning, naked.”
He sat up straight. “You mean he must have put you there?”
She nodded. “He told me the next day he’d had trouble getting me into my apartment because I was drunk. He said he undressed me because I’d fallen down in the snow and my clothes were wet. He was afraid I
’d get hypothermia.”
“The SOB! Did he rape you?”
“I don’t think so. I wasn’t sore or…or anything.”
“Did you report it to the police?”
She cast him a wry look. “And accuse him of what? Taking a drunken woman home and taking off her wet clothes and putting her safely into her own bed? Looking at me as he undressed me?”
The SOB was smart; he had to give him that. “I can see your point. So, what’s the last thing you remember?”
“I remember riding home in his car in the dark. It was winter and I was shivering, so he turned the heater on. He was playing rock music and his car always smelled like cigarette smoke because he chain smokes.
“He was driving and sort of watching me out of the corner of his eye, not saying much. I felt kind of woozy and laid my head back against the seat. That’s all I remember until I woke up the next morning with a horrible headache and lots of bruises in various places.”
“And you talked to him about this later?”
“Yes.” She got up and paced again, stopping to lean against the brick fireplace. “He called the next day. He said I had too much wine and I slipped and fell on the ice and slushy snow outside my apartment and knocked myself out. He said my clothes were soaked. He carried me inside, took off my wet clothes, put me to bed and left.”
“But you don’t believe him, do you?” He could see and hear her doubt on her face and in her voice.
“No.”
“Why not?”
She turned to face him, raising her chin. Her hazel eyes flashed defiantly. “I’m quite sure I had only one glass of wine with dinner that night, and one more at the dance just before we left. Two little glasses of wine shouldn’t have made me pass out, especially since I drank them along with a large meal.”
He nodded in agreement. “So that’s why you don’t drink now. You are afraid it’ll affect you the same way?”
She nodded, flushing.
“And you don’t remember much of the drive home, or falling on the ice?”
“No.”
“Were your bruises in the usual places, like on skinned hands or knees or torn nylons, a bump on your head, as you’d expect to get from a fall on the ice?”
Again she shook her head. “No, they were on my upper arms, thighs and lower abdomen.”
He got up and took her in his arms. He tipped her head back and kissed her gently. “Loni, I don’t think the wine made you pass out. I think he drugged you.”
She stared at him. “Drugged me? But how?”
“He probably put something in your drink when you went to the ladies’ room.”
She put her hand up to her mouth. “Oh. I should have thought of that.”
He led her back to the sofa and kept his arm around her. “What happened after that? You said you had to move away and change your phone number?”
Loni leaned back against his arm. She sighed and said, “He kept calling. Late at night, he’d call and talk dirty. He’d say how much he had enjoyed undressing me. That he liked the way I looked naked. How soft my skin was, and how delicious my breasts tasted.”
“The SOB!” Matt exploded.
She shuddered and the tears started again. “He made me feel dirty. I don’t think he raped me, but he evidently did as he pleased with my body while I was out, either in the car, or later in my bed.”
“Did you tape him saying any of that?”
“No, I hung up after telling him he was a creep and to stop calling me or I’d go to the police. After I mentioned going to the police, he stopped calling except to ask me out.”
“This was all before the jewelry store robbery?”
“Yes. When the calls started after the robbery, I was sure it was those guys. Now I’m not so sure.”
“And you told Ben you did report those calls?”
“Yes. I did manage to tape him saying he knew where I lived and could always find me. I took my answering machine with me to the police station to report it. But, like a dummy, I forgot it was digital, not a tape machine, so it erases when you unplug it. So when I got to the station, there was nothing on it. The officer was very nice about it, saying people didn’t always understand technology. Meaning dumb blondes like me didn’t, of course.”
“I see.”
She laughed. “Ironic, isn’t it? I wanted to tell him I graduated at the top of my class. But why bother? He wouldn’t have believed me.”
“Right,” he said and stroked her curly blonde hair. “I absolutely love your blonde hair. Go on. What happened at the police station?”
“Nothing. I mean, I told them I thought it was the robber who promised to get me if I talked to the police. I didn’t have any evidence, though, so they said they couldn’t do anything. They said they didn’t have enough men to guard every woman in Chicago whose ex-boyfriend was harassing her, and to change my phone number or use an answering machine to screen my calls.”
“I see. That was before your apartment burned?”
“Yes. Then I moved to a hotel and got more calls there.”
“Did you ever tell Hank about growing up here in Canton?”
“No. But he must have found out anyway.”
“He probably found you through a school reunion site or college records, or maybe by asking your employer about what you filled out on your job application.”
She looked surprised and shook her head. “I don’t think my employer would tell anyone that.”
Matt gave her a wry smile. “He could have bribed another employee to look at the records and tell him. People do sneaky things for money.”
“I suppose.”
“Come on,” he said, standing and drawing her up with him. “I think you should stay at my place until this guy is put behind bars.”
“I can’t do that!”
“Why not?”
“Matt, this is a small town. People talk.”
He ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. She could be so stubborn! “Then stay at Maria or Jolene’s house.”
Loni hesitated and then shook her head. “That won’t work either. What reason would I give them for asking to do that? I can’t tell them all this. Besides, he might hurt them.”
“Then I’ll stay here,” Matt declared. “I can put my car in the garage and we can drive into town separately in the morning. Nobody will know the difference.”
“No. Hank knows where I live. He called me here.”
“That doesn’t mean he knows where this house is.”
She frowned at him. “Yes, it does, Matt. Remember the raccoon? And he had the rose delivered. He told me once that if he has your phone number, he can find out anything about you on the internet, even a map to your house.”
Matt nodded. “I know. But I’ll be here. I won’t let him hurt you.”
She sighed. “I’d rather go to your place. I don’t think he’s connected us yet, so we’ll be safer there.”
“Good. Grab some overnight stuff and clothes for work tomorrow then, and let’s go. Leave your car here, in case he’s tracking that.”
“All right.”
“On second thought, take enough clothes for several days. I don’t think you should come back here for a while, at least not alone.”
Loni nodded and quickly packed, then carefully locked the house and got into Matt’s car. On the way into town, she told him she’d ordered a security system for her house.
“But the locksmith can’t install it until Monday,” she said.
“I don’t like the idea of you out there alone, even with a security system,” Matt said. “If Hank is as smart as you say, he might know how to disable it.”
Loni said nothing. What could she say? She knew Matt was right. Hank would probably know how to look up the details of the workings of any security system. She was kidding herself. She’d never get away from the man.
Chapter 9
Matt drove them to his house, a brick rambler set well back from the tree-lined street on the wes
t end of Canton. He pressed the remote control to open his garage, parked inside and closed the door behind them.
He picked up Loni’s overnight case and they went into the house through a side door and into the kitchen.
Loni stopped inside to look around. The kitchen was finished in natural oak. Bright red canisters, knick-knacks and towels added color. A pass-through counter led to a large dining area in an L-shaped room which included a family area with a large brick fireplace. Those rooms were done in autumn shades of browns and gold. “I love it. Did you decorate the house yourself?”
He laughed. “No, I’m not artistic. It looks the same as it did when I bought it.”
“And that was when?”
“Almost five years ago, when I first came to town. Make yourself at home. I’ll put your things in the bedroom.” He strode down the hall with her overnight case.
Now that he’d had time to think about it, he was pretty sure the vision he’d had of a blond man carrying her into an apartment building was a vision of something in the past, not the future. Probably of that last date with Hank. That was a big relief. At any rate, he was glad to have her at his place and out of danger. He put her bag on the bed and went back down the hall.
He found her standing in front of the fireplace, looking sad and lost. He went to her, wrapped his arms around her. She trembled against his chest.
He stroked her soft blonde curls. “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered.
“I’m so scared.” A sound like a puppy whimpering came from her lips.
“Shh, honey, you’re okay. He won’t find you here. You’re safe with me,” he soothed.
“Hold me, Matt,” she murmured. “I need you.”
Tipping her head back, he met her lips with his. She responded, tentatively at first, then eagerly. He settled on the sofa with her in his lap and continued kissing her. Heat spread through his body. He trailed kisses along her cheek and down the side of her throat. His hand slid up her side and cupped her soft, warm breast through her blouse.
He wanted her so much it hurt. He’d gone solid as a hammer handle, but had to resist temptation. She was too vulnerable right now.