by Camy Tang
Her father was regaining mobility and strength in his legs daily, but he still required her strength to help him out of the car. She steered him into his wheelchair because the physical therapy he had been doing would have tired his legs too much for him to use the walker comfortably.
“Dad, I’m almost fully funded.” She set in place the temporary wooden ramp up the front steps of the house to the front door, grateful that she’d parked in the circular driveway right in front of the door so it was only a short trip from the car into the house. “The investors I have are committed to the project. I’ve already got a hospital director helping me write the business proposal. I’ve hired an accountant to help with the financials.” She unlocked the front door and disabled the house alarm.
As she wheeled her father inside, he argued, “But no one has actually given money to the project yet except what you’ve put in yourself. There won’t be any harm in dropping the project for now and picking it up again when the police catch this stalker.”
“There’s no guarantee the police will catch this man,” Monica said. She wheeled him into the library. “When I do start up the project again, I’d have to start all over from the ground up, including drumming up investors. It’s taken me three years to get to this point.”
“Monica.” Her father gripped her arm, and she stopped to look at him. His faded green eyes were earnest and calm, rather than sparking with temper like they usually were when they argued. “I know this sounds like I’m trying again to get you to drop this project and work as resident nurse at the spa instead. This isn’t about that. You’re in danger, and I don’t want you hurt.”
It was strange to see him like this, concerned and calm rather than fiery and argumentative. The two of them were too much alike, which was why they’d been arguing about this for the past year.
And the truth was, she was angry. She had always gotten along well with people, and men in particular, but she never let them control her. She thought back to the bickering with Shaun at the restaurant and how her independent spirit seemed to always clash with his stalwart opinions.
But this stalker was trying to control her in a darker way than Shaun’s forcefulness or her father’s arguments. In general, she didn’t like anyone telling her what to do, but this wasn’t a situation where she could go her own way and thumb her nose at whoever was trying to dominate her.
“I know, Dad,” she said. “I still haven’t decided what I’m going to do yet.”
The sound of a car in the front driveway sent her to the window, and she saw her sister Rachel and her boyfriend, Edward, climb out of his truck. Last week, Edward, who owned a greenhouse business and often hired day laborers, had brought to Monica an injured boy whose parents hadn’t been able to afford to send him to the Emergency Room. Taking care of him had reminded her of how much this area needed affordable care for children.
“What are you two doing here?” Monica asked as Edward and Rachel entered the house. Rachel held a beat-up metal pot, and from it came the smell of something scrumptious that filled the house.
Rachel held the pot out to Monica. “This is from Julio’s mother, as a thanks for patching her boy up last week. Tamales.”
“I love tamales.” Just the smell was making her mouth water. “Did you want some?”
Before they could answer, the sound of another car in the driveway made her remember that Mr. O’Neill was supposed to arrive to talk to Dad about his hotel plans. Before they even rang the doorbell, she opened the door with a welcoming smile to Shaun and his father. “Come on in. Dad’s in the library, but I’m going to wheel him into the kitchen so we can enjoy some of these.” She held out the pot of tamales. “Won’t you join us?”
“I never turn down homemade tamales,” Patrick O’Neill said.
“I’m afraid we just came to drop them by,” Edward said. “Rachel and I need to get to the greenhouses to check up on the plants for her scar-reduction cream.”
“Is yours the truck?” Shaun asked. “Our car is behind you on the circular driveway.”
“I’ll move my car,” Monica said. It was easier for her to move forward on the circular driveway and clear the path for Edward’s truck than force Shaun to maneuver backward around the curve of the driveway. She handed the tamales to Rachel. “Can you put these on the kitchen table and get Dad? He’s in the library.”
Monica headed out the front door. She nearly tripped over the wooden ramp, which she’d left over the front steps. She nudged it to the side with her foot.
She slowed as she dug in her jeans pocket for her car keys. She had a hard time grabbing them, and when she did, she was already at the car. She reached for the door handle.
There was another dead snake dangling down over the driver’s side window.
Shaun had been about to join his father and Augustus Grant in the kitchen when Monica’s strangled shriek startled him. He raced out the front door.
She had dropped her car keys as she recoiled backward from her car, her face white. He followed her gaze and saw the snake, seemingly tossed carelessly onto the roof of her car, with the head arranged to rest against the closed driver’s side window.
He reacted swiftly, racing to her and grabbing her none too gently by the shoulders. He propelled her toward the front door, his arm around her as he hustled her inside. She stumbled over the threshold, but he tightened his hold on her so she wouldn’t fall.
He shoved her to one side of the door and slammed it shut. He peered out through the long, narrow diamond pane windows on either side of the front door, but couldn’t see anything through the fuzzy glass. “I can’t see anything,” he muttered. “Do you have any other windows with a clear view of your car?”
Edward and Rachel, both standing at the foot of the stairs, turned toward them with shocked expressions. “What’s going on?”
Monica sagged against the wall, her breath coming in gasps. She pointed to her right through the open doorway. “Dining room windows. You think he’s out there now?”
Shaun hurried into the dining room and moved aside the drapes. The large window gave a clear view of the entire front lawn of the house, including the orange tree grove on the other side of the neatly trimmed grass. No movement.
“Your stalker is outside?” Rachel asked. She and Monica had moved warily into the dining room also, while Edward moved to the other side of the window and peered outside.
“Creeps like stalkers enjoy watching. He wouldn’t have put that there and not stuck around to see your reaction.” Shaun turned from the window and his eyes caught hers. “Monica, that snake wasn’t there when we arrived a few minutes ago.”
A violent shiver passed over her entire body. She swallowed, trying to get hold of herself.
“What’s going on?” Augustus Grant’s voice called from the kitchen. There was another open doorway into the kitchen from the dining room, and Augustus had a clear view of where they stood on either side of the window.
“Rachel.” Monica motioned to their father, and Rachel hurried to Augustus and Patrick, speaking in a low voice.
Shaun looked outside again. Her stalker had been only a few feet away. He’d been close enough to be able to place the snake on the car in the short minutes between the time Shaun had entered the house and when she went outside to move the car.
Shaun scanned the front lawn. There weren’t many places the stalker could hide. There was a small group of trees to one side of the property, but the rest of the front lawn had open, serene landscaping with artfully placed black rocks and a few low shrubs that wouldn’t hide more than a rabbit. On the far end of the lawn was a grove of orange trees. Had he been able to run from the orange grove to the driveway and back in only a few minutes, with no one seeing him from the house?
Then it occurred to Shaun that maybe the stalker had been crouched behind Monica’s or Edward’s car when Shaun drove up with his father. The man might have been only a few feet away. Shaun might have even heard him breathing if he’d been
paying attention.
If he’d been that close when Shaun drove up, the man would have had time to plant the snake and then get to the orange grove in the few minutes before Monica exited the house to move the car.
“Do you have binoculars?” he asked.
Rachel ran to her father’s library and returned with a pair. Shaun searched the orange trees on the far side of the front lawn.
The tiny figure of a man came into focus. Peering through binoculars directly at Shaun.
The man bolted away.
No. He wouldn’t let him get away.
Shaun sprinted to the front door.
“Shaun!” Monica shouted. “It’s too dangerous!”
His hand was on the doorknob. She was right. He didn’t know if the stalker had a gun or not. He had to protect Monica, not run after the stalker.
His hand dropped from the doorknob, but the frustration sizzled in his brain, making buzzing appear on the edges of his vision.
The stalker had been watching them—had been watching Monica. This was the kind of man he hated—the ones who thought they had the right to play with others’ lives. The ones who acted like God. The frustration of dealing with men like this had made him quit the border patrol, had made him feel like a cop who couldn’t hack it.
Well, he’d catch this man. And maybe it would heal what was broken inside him so he could do his job again.
“Are you all right?” Rachel asked Monica.
Monica looked up from where she sat at the kitchen table. Dad and Mr. O’Neill were in the library, finally having their discussion about the spa’s expansion into a hotel, and Shaun was outside talking to Detective Carter about what he’d seen through the binoculars. Edward had left because of an emergency at the greenhouses, but Rachel had stayed with her sister.
“I think so.” Her gaze fell on the pot of tamales, forgotten on the table. “Be sure to tell Julio’s mother thanks.”
“I will. Julio’s doing great.”
“He should have gone to the E.R., Rach. He’s lucky that gash to his leg hadn’t been worse.”
“I know, but it was his father’s call. And at least you looked at him rather than no one at all.”
What kind of world was it when a man couldn’t take his son to the hospital because he couldn’t afford it? The frustration welled up in her, buzzing in her ears. “It’s not right.”
Rachel looked at her in confusion. “What?”
“This area needs adequate medical facilities especially for the migrant workers and the farmhands. If my free children’s clinic had been up and running, Julio’s father could have taken him there and not had to pay anything.” How could she abandon her plans for the clinic?
Monica wasn’t the headstrong, gutsy one—that was her sister Naomi. But she also wasn’t the logical, gentle sister like Rachel. She was the emotional one, the one who always thought with her heart and relied on her instincts. Were her emotions only getting her in trouble now?
And it wasn’t just her desire to help children like Julio that drove her. She knew that, deep in her heart of hearts, she wanted this clinic because it would make her feel like she had accomplished something, that she was more than just an E.R. nurse. She wanted to help more people. Dad’s insistence that she become a resident nurse at the spa would be her agreeing to fade away to insignificance, and she couldn’t willingly do that when she had a chance to really make a difference in someone’s life. In lots of children’s lives.
“I don’t like hiding,” Monica told her sister. “I don’t like waiting around and giving this man permission to keep leaving dead snakes everywhere I turn. I don’t like putting my life on hold while I wait for someone to capture him. Even though I know it’s dangerous, I’d rather fight him off than let him win.”
“Is this clinic more important than your safety?”
“If I did stop work on this clinic, would you feel easy knowing this stalker was still out there, maybe still watching me?” Monica demanded. “Would you be okay knowing he would be out there terrorizing some other woman? At least while he’s after me, there’s a better chance he’ll be caught by the police.” Or by Shaun, she realized. She could already predict what he was going to do, and it wasn’t apply to the Sonoma PD. Not yet.
“But this man might have killed Shaun’s sister.”
“But I’m not Shaun’s sister, and since I already know what he’s done before, I can be prepared.”
“Prepared? How? He’s leaving gruesome gifts, he was watching you…”
“I can’t stop him from watching me.” Monica couldn’t suppress a shiver that raced through her. It made her feel slimy. “But I can be smart about all this. I can hire protection.”
“Like a bodyguard?”
“I’d rather have a bodyguard than be afraid of what some lunatic is going to do to me. And I know just the person to ask.”
THREE
The O’Neills stayed for dinner, although the conversation and atmosphere were a bit subdued after the events of the afternoon. Evita, the Grants’ housekeeper and cook, whipped up a cheese soufflé which was apparently the Grant sisters’ favorite dish, but it left Shaun feeling a bit unfulfilled. He didn’t say anything since his father enjoyed the airy concoction.
After dinner, Patrick O’Neill and Augustus Grant headed into the library for further discussions about the spa hotel, and Monica caught Shaun’s eye. She motioned toward the kitchen with her head.
Evita had gone home right after serving the dessert, a rich chocolate cake. Monica went to the refrigerator and pulled out a bag of tortillas. “Chicken quesadilla?” she asked him.
“Are you still hungry?”
“No, but I know you are.”
Shaun’s cheeks burned. “Uh… Thanks.”
She turned on the heat under a cast-iron skillet on the stove. “So are you still going to apply to the Sonoma Police Department?”
He wasn’t sure how to answer that, then decided to be honest. “Not yet.” Then he fired back at her, “Are you going to abandon your plans for the clinic?”
She hesitated before dropping a thin stream of oil on the cast-iron skillet, and her chin firmed. “No.”
He wasn’t sure how to feel about that. On the one hand, it was safer for her if she stopped her plans so that the stalker wouldn’t hurt her. On the other hand, her continuing her plans for the clinic would keep the stalker in Sonoma, would keep him near her. Would enable Shaun to catch the psycho.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“I’ve thought it over.” She lay a tortilla on the hot skillet. “I won’t back down and be a victim. I won’t let him think he can make some threats and people will obey him. This clinic is important.”
“How does your family feel about that?”
“They’re not happy. Dad’s still trying to get me to stop.” She shredded some cooked chicken breast onto the tortilla, then topped it with cheese and another tortilla.
“It’s dangerous.” He didn’t want her putting herself in danger and he couldn’t get himself to encourage her to make herself a target just so he could catch the stalker.
She gave him a significant glance. “That’s where you come in.”
“Me?”
“Since you haven’t applied to the Sonoma PD yet, how about working for me as a bodyguard?”
Shaun stared hard at her. “You want me?”
“You can’t do it?”
“Of course I can do it.”
“So what’s the problem?”
He hesitated, then finally said, “Following you day after day will take me away from my investigation into the stalker.”
“I figured you’d be doing your own investigation,” she said.
Shaun didn’t admit that another problem would be being near Monica day after day. She made him feel both comfortable to be around her, bantering like this, and yet on edge because he was so attracted to her. He didn’t want that attraction distracting him. He didn’t want any romance in his life, he didn
’t want any women in his life.
Monica flipped the quesadilla with a spatula, and it sizzled on the skillet. “Did you consider that since I’m the target, you being with me would draw the stalker out?”
“You being a target isn’t something to take lightly.”
“I’m not, but I also trust you to be able to protect me.”
Her words kicked him in the gut, and he turned away from her to look out the kitchen window at the side yard.
Why did she trust him when he didn’t even trust himself? He had failed to protect his sister. He’d failed the people who died at the coyote’s hands in that accident down at the border—no, he couldn’t think about it. If he thought about it, the guilt would burn in his stomach and he’d see their faces in front of his eyes. “I can’t protect you,” he said.
Her brow wrinkled. “Why not? You’re a cop.”
“I’m—I was border patrol. I’m not anything right now.” He couldn’t take on a job of protecting someone.
Monica’s shoulders settled, but then she straightened. “Well, I guess I’ll find someone else to help me catch him.”
“What do you mean, catch him?” Shaun took a step closer.
“I don’t intend to sit around and wait for him to hurt me.” She slid the crispy quesadilla onto a plate. “I’m the perfect bait. If not you, then I’ll just find someone else to keep me safe.”
“How do you know you can trust me? What if I was a terrible cop?”
She smiled at him. “A terrible cop? You? You’re a born protector—it practically oozes out of you. It’s in the way you stand, the way you walk, the things you say. It probably runs in your family, since you were all so overprotective of Clare.”
He felt like she’d ripped away a shield. She had sharper insight into him than anyone else he’d known.
She continued, “I think you and I could find this stalker a lot faster than the overworked Sonoma PD could. We’ve both got a lot at stake—my clinic, your sister’s murder.” She paused, then added, “I’m not going to be a victim.”