Stalker in the Shadows (Love Inspired Suspense)

by Camy Tang

  There was that word again. He’d quit the border patrol because he’d seen too many victims he couldn’t save.

  But Shaun couldn’t stand by and let Monica be bait. He understood how she didn’t want to be a doormat and give in to this creep, and if she was going to try to stop the stalker, he wanted to help her. “Okay, I’ll be your bodyguard.”

  She smiled and held out her hand. “Great.”

  He shook her hand, but the point of contact between their palms made a strange sort of energized languor move up his arm, then his shoulder, then through his torso. He felt relaxed and yet tense at the same time. He abruptly dropped her hand when he realized he’d held it for too long.

  Monica blinked rapidly, as if waking up from a dream, then handed him the quesadilla. “You should eat this before it gets too cold.”

  She cut herself another small slice of chocolate cake before joining him at the kitchen breakfast table under the window.

  “Let’s talk about what we’re going to do,” she said. “My business proposal is almost completed and my accountant is finalizing the clinic’s financial plan.” She glanced out the window into the dark and then suddenly froze.

  His skin prickled. “What is it?”

  Her face had become pasty. “I…I don’t know. I thought I saw something move.”

  He whipped his hand out and yanked the cord to drop the blinds. He twisted the plastic rod to lever the slats closed, then shot out of his chair and snapped the lights off.

  Her face looked ghostly in the dark. He stood close behind her and peered out through the slit where the blinds didn’t quite cover the edge of the window.

  He had to wait for his eyes to adjust. He saw low azalea bushes. Was one bush a bit oddly shaped or was it just his imagination?

  And then the bush moved.

  He hesitated a split second that seemed like forever. He hadn’t chased the stalker earlier because he hadn’t been sure if the man had a gun or not. He still didn’t know.

  But the frustration of not being able to capture his sister’s killer burned in Shaun’s gut. The stalker was so close—Shaun wasn’t going to let this person get away again.

  “Stay here,” he ordered Monica, and he raced for the sliding glass door at the other end of the kitchen that opened into the backyard.

  He didn’t bother being quiet—he flicked the latch open and hauled the door open, leaping out onto the dark back porch and jumping down the steps before turning and heading for the side of the house.

  He caught a flicker of movement to the left of his head and he flinched. Something hard and heavy struck him in the cheekbone and jaw.

  He didn’t remember falling to the ground. Pain spidered out from his cheekbone, aching and throbbing through his jaw while lights flashed in and out of his vision.

  Then a voice, low and male, whispered, “You’ll never catch me.”

  He heard a rustle like a leather jacket, and then a shadow passed before his eyes. He tried to make his hands grope for the man as he walked away, but his limbs weren’t responding. The side gate creaked on its hinges as the stalker calmly walked away.

  “Shaun!” Monica’s voice was worried.

  He rolled to the side, but it made the pain in his head pool to his right side and throb behind his eyes. His hands gripped the earth under him, his nails digging into the dirt. His arms were shaking but he managed to push and sit up. The world tilted and then he saw Monica’s anxious face, blurry and beautiful.

  “I told you to stay in the house,” he growled.

  “The house alarm is on,” she said. “When you opened the door, I had to turn off the alarm before it started blaring. Then I heard something thud. Looks like it was your face.”

  “He could have still been here,” Shaun said.

  “I heard the gate close, so I knew he wasn’t here,” Monica said impatiently, trying to get a closer look at Shaun’s face. “Can you see okay? How many fingers am I holding up?”

  “Three.” He tried to haul himself to his feet, but the pain in his head jumped a magnitude and he had to pause a moment on his knees, breathing hard, before the throbbing slowly lessened.

  “Let’s get you inside.” Monica took his arm and helped him stagger into the kitchen.

  He sat heavily in a chair at the table and let the room spin around him. When Monica turned on the lights, he squinted and covered his eyes with his hand.

  “Sorry,” she said, “but I need light to look at your face.” She pulled his hand away and he felt her soft, cool fingers gently stroking his brow, his cheek.

  “You’ll have a giant bruise,” she said, “but I think you’ll be okay. No stitches, anyway.”

  Just a giant headache.

  Her amber eyes clouded to mahogany. “Did you see anything?”

  “Nothing. I ran out and he hit me.”

  “I saw a shovel lying near you.”

  “He stopped to speak to me.” The words came out hard through his teeth as he said, “‘You’ll never catch me.’ That’s what he said.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “That’s arrogant of him.”

  “It means he’s more likely to make a mistake. This isn’t the first time he’s done this.”

  “This is the third time he’s come after me in two days.” Monica got a towel and wet it with cold water. “How often did your sister get letters from him?”

  “Every day or every other day.”

  “I don’t see a guy like this waiting too long to start harassing me, do you?”

  “No.”

  “So that means I can pinpoint when I might have met him.”

  “What do you mean?” Shaun winced as she pressed the towel to his throbbing cheek.

  “The only people I’ve talked to about my free children’s clinic are my family, whom I’ve told not to say anything, the potential investors, my hospital director friend who’s helping me draft the business plan and the accountant I’ve hired. I’m thinking the stalker is one of the potential investors I talked to in the past few weeks.”

  “Do you remember who you’ve talked to?”

  “I attended three large parties in the past two weeks to meet people and talk about the clinic. Before those parties, the last investor I talked to was over two months ago. So I think the stalker could be someone I spoke to at any of those three parties.”

  “What parties?”

  “The Zoe International charity banquet last week—your dad was there. The annual Tosca bottle unveiling banquet a few days before that, and then two weeks ago, the Sonoma Businessmen’s Association dinner.”

  “You went to all those?”

  “I went in Dad’s place. He doesn’t like going to those things, but I use them as opportunities to keep up relationships with other businesses and the Joy Luck Life Spa, and recently I’ve been sending out feelers for investors for my clinic.”

  “So your stalker might be someone you met at one of those events,” Shaun said. He reached up to grab her hand and stop her ministrations to his face. Her skin felt silky under his rough fingers, and he didn’t immediately let go, instead rubbing his thumb over a smooth knuckle.

  What was he doing? He didn’t need complications in his life. He dropped her hand and cleared his throat. “Do you think you can come up with a list of people you spoke to about the clinic?”

  She was staring at her hand. She dropped the towel onto the kitchen table. “I think so.”

  “You can leave off anyone who already knew about your clinic before two weeks ago. I don’t think this guy would have waited longer than two weeks to start following you.”

  “Did you ever investigate how he might have met your sister?”

  “I tried, but none of us knew when she’d started receiving the letters, and since I’d been down in San Diego at the time, it was hard to find out where she’d gone and where she could have met her stalker.”

  “There’s a chance he’d try to meet me face-to-face again, without me knowing he’s my stalker. Do you think that�
�s something he’d enjoy doing?”

  “Definitely.” His eyes narrowed as he studied her face, which had a calculating look. “What are you planning?”

  “For the past several weeks, I’d been planning to give a party for about forty people. Some of them are already investors for the clinic, but some need a little more information before they commit.”

  “So you’re thinking you’ll go through with planning the party? And you can invite some of the people you might have met in the past two weeks.”

  “I can’t invite everyone I talked to, but I can certainly invite many of them.”

  “If the stalker keeps coming after you, we can figure out more clues about him and narrow down who he might be. I remember he wore a leather jacket or leather coat tonight. I could hear the leather rustling.”

  “That’s a start.”

  “Where do you need to go this next week?” He may as well figure out a plan for protecting her even with her schedule.

  “I have—” she began, but they were interrupted when his father entered the kitchen.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting, Shaun…” His voice trailed away at the sight of him. “What happened to your face?”

  “The stalker was here tonight,” Monica said quickly. “He attacked Shaun.”

  “What?” Augustus Grant wheeled into the kitchen. His face was drawn with both worry and anger.

  “We were just about to call Detective Carter,” Monica said, giving Shaun a meaningful look.

  He interpreted it easily—Let’s talk later.

  Yes, and in the meantime, he’d plan what he needed to do to keep her safe. Maybe he’d find this stalker and somehow find redemption for how he’d failed his only sister.

  “Is this absolutely necessary?” Monica followed Shaun into the gym at the Rubart Towers Hotel in Sonoma, a hotel that used to belong to Shaun’s father before he sold it to the Rubart hotel conglomerate.

  “I would think you’d want to learn some self-defense moves.” Shaun led her into a general purpose room at the back of the workout room, a large area with mirrors all around and soft mats on the floor.

  “I took a self-defense class.” She removed her sweatshirt, leaving her only in a T-shirt and workout capris that made her shiver in the air-conditioning.

  “I’m going to teach you some jiujitsu moves that will help you in close quarters.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to keep me from getting into that situation in the first place?”

  She meant it as a joke, but to her surprise, he turned away from her. In the reflection from the mirrors, his expression was almost anguished.

  Then he turned back to her and he was back to normal, his face serious and intense. “Let’s get started.”

  He taught her a few types of arm bars, which she felt comfortable with since they didn’t require extraordinary strength or quickness on her part. Then he moved to a guillotine hold, and she felt guilty causing him pain as she practiced the move over and over.

  But more than the moves themselves, Shaun showed her that she wasn’t a weakling. He gave her confidence in her ability to fight someone rather than just giving in. If the stalker attacked her, she wouldn’t feel quite so vulnerable.

  “This last move is a triangle choke hold,” Shaun said. He explained the jiujitsu move, which involved her performing a choke hold with a triangle formed with her legs. “Now lay on your back and visualize to yourself that I’m the stalker, I’m trying to hurt you.”

  When she did, he angled himself on his hands and knees on top of her, and a rush of feeling passed through her to see his blue eyes so close, staring down at her.

  A long moment passed where he simply looked at her. She couldn’t look away, she was drowning in that cerulean sea.

  She couldn’t get herself to visualize the stalker, because this was so obviously Shaun. His strength and capability made her feel protected and secure, even in this vulnerable position on the ground. He gave off the aura of protectiveness that made her believe he would never hurt her, he would never abandon her, he’d do anything to keep her safe.

  Something about his blue gaze became less businesslike and more intense. Her breathing quickened, and she could smell his musk, the scent of a pine forest after the rain. His eyes flickered to her mouth, staring for a long moment, and then he lowered his head and kissed her.

  His lips were softer than she would have expected from such a tough, masculine guy. His hand stroked the hair wisping out from her temple, his touch gentle. He kissed her with a kind of wonder and carefulness, as if he were holding a butterfly in his cupped hands. She felt cherished and honored.

  Reason filtered through her mind slowly, but when it made itself known, she remembered that she couldn’t be doing this. Shaun was a lawman. He’d always be in careers where he could protect people, putting himself in harm’s way to save them, like he was doing with her.

  She couldn’t bear loving a man and sending him out to danger every single day, wondering if today was the day he wouldn’t come home. She’d seen those women in the Emergency Room, she’d comforted them and been devastated by just the thought of their pain. She had vowed she wouldn’t be one of them.

  She planted her feet and thrust up hard with her entire torso, bucking him off her so she could roll away and jump to her feet. He had tumbled to his side with a look of surprise on his face, but now he took his time standing up, and he didn’t look at her.

  She had a hard time looking at him, too, although she tried to adopt a businesslike demeanor. “Not a triangle choke hold, but it’ll get me away from the stalker so I can run for help.”

  “That’s good,” he said gruffly. He turned his back to her and walked to the corner of the room, where a basket of clean towels stood. He tossed one to her.

  “Thanks.” She dabbed at the sweat on her neck.

  When he turned back to her, he was again stalwart and confident, but not as aggressive in his stance as he usually was. A haunted look floated in the back of his eyes, something that went deep. What was it? Did it have to do with his sister? No, he’d had that look even before finding out about the stalker and telling her about his sister. He hadn’t had that look when she’d met him ten years ago, but it had been clouding his eyes ever since he had returned to Sonoma after quitting the border patrol. Did that have something to do with it? It made her want to help him heal from whatever had gripped his heart.

  No. She couldn’t get involved with him.

  She gave him a false smile. “We’re good, right?”

  “What?”

  “The k-kiss—” she had a hard time saying the word “—wasn’t a big deal. Just the heat of the moment.”

  He seemed startled at first, then a look like relief relaxed his brow line. “Yeah. We’re good.”

  The relief should have comforted her, but perversely, it created a buzz of irritation in her head. “Good.” She turned away from him and headed out of the room.

  As she picked up her purse from the gym locker, her cell phone rang. She answered it as she exited the women’s locker room to meet Shaun near the gym entrance. “Hello?”

  “Hi, Monica, it’s Phillip Bromley. I hope I’m not calling at a bad time.”

  “Not at all. I’m at the gym at the Rubart Hotel.”

  “One of Patrick O’Neill’s hotels, right? Before he sold it to the Rubart hotel conglomerate?”

  “Yes, have you been here?”

  “Last year. It’s fantastic. Anyway, I’m calling to ask if we can reschedule our meeting.”

  “Sure.” They decided on lunch the next day at Lorianne’s Café again.

  As they were talking, she reached the gym entrance, and when Shaun saw she was on the phone, he moved a short distance away so she could finish her conversation. When she hung up, he asked, “You have a lunch appointment tomorrow?”

  “At Lorianne’s Café. You’ll come with me?”

  “Yes. Who are you meeting?”

  She hesitated before admitting, “Phillip B
romley.”

  His brow flattened. “I warned you to stay away from him.”

  “Why? What do you have against him?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “So you want me to offend a potential investor for the clinic, and the only reason you’re giving is, ‘because I say so?’ That’s not going to cut it.”

  He glanced around. The main area of the hotel gym housed the treadmills and elliptical exercise machines, and they were almost all filled with people exercising since it was close to noon. He pulled her a little to the side.

  He stared at the floor for a moment, his expression fierce. Then he said, “I think Phillip Bromley is the stalker.”

  FOUR

  Monica couldn’t believe it. She’d talked to Phillip numerous times. Although she had a feeling he had another agenda, she’d never gotten any hint that he was dangerous, or that he was lying about his interest in the clinic. She had always prided herself on how well she could read people. Had she been grossly wrong about him? “You need to explain.”

  He looked away, staring at some people exercising a few yards away. “I grew up with Phillip. We were classmates in a private school in San Francisco from first through twelfth grade. You get to know someone pretty well when you spend seven hours a day with him.”

  “Did Phillip know Clare, too?”

  “Not in school. She went to a private girls’ school in San Francisco, and his family lives in Sonoma, but they didn’t become friends until after Clare got her MBA.”

  “So if they were friends up here in Sonoma, what happened when she moved to L.A.?”

  “He followed her to L.A. only a few weeks later.”

  “That doesn’t make him her stalker.”

  “I’ve never trusted him. He always seems to be hiding something.”

  Yes, she’d gotten that feeling, too, but that didn’t make him a stalker hiding his secret, did it?

  Shaun continued, “Clare didn’t consider him a close friend, but they hung out in the same crowd of friends down in L.A., went to parties with the same group of people, that kind of thing.”

  “Why would he pose as an anonymous stalker if he was friends with your sister? He had access to her almost any time.”