Will leaned back against the desk, his arms crossed over his muscled chest, staring at her steadily.
Kasey felt herself backing down. “I’m sorry,” she told him. “I apologize for my curiosity. It was wrong of me to act on it, but why wouldn’t I, when I innocently walk in here and see things that seem to belong to another person? The books and then your computer files—”
“How did that strike you, Kasey?”
She realized that she wasn’t quite sure, but she bristled at the condescending way he’d asked the question. “It struck me that someone had written a play. You, I guess.”
“Well, you’re right. I wrote it, but it’s not actually a play.” He crossed in front of her, reached into a drawer and handed her a document in a green plastic binder.
She turned to the first page and read the title aloud. “‘The Hemlock Tree,’ a television script by William Mastane.” She looked down at the mail on his desk and then across at him. “Eastman. Mastane. It’s an anagram, the same letters rearranged. You’re William Mastane!”
“Yes,” he said simply.
Kasey’s mind whirled, and there was a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. What the hell was going on? A terrible sense of dread encompassed her.
“You lied to me about your name. Why?” She wrapped her arms around the script and clutched it to her chest. “And you didn’t even tell me what you did for a living. In fact, you lied about that, too. Taxi driver, construction worker... Did you lie about everything, Will?”
“Writers take all kinds of second jobs. That was no lie.”
“But your name?”
“It seemed best for me not to use my real name.”
She dropped the script onto the desk as if it were suddenly red-hot.
He watched that move without comment.
Why did you lie to me?” she asked. “I thought we had something special. I thought we trusted each other. I even thought—”
“Go on.” He didn’t move a muscle as he watched her. “You thought...”
Kasey met his hard gaze evenly. “I thought we were falling in love.” She gave a bitter laugh. “I was going to tell you. Tonight. That I loved you. I guess you think I’m a real fool.”
“Not you, Kasey. Never you. You’re a woman who says what she believes and feels. Up to now, I haven’t been able to do that.”
“So instead you lie! Lie to me and then make love?” She moved across the room, as far away from the desk and Will as she could get. She wanted to leave, to get away from him completely, but not until she found out why he’d made a fool of her.
“Making love wasn’t a lie, Kasey. That’s the only true part of this whole mess. I wish I could explain what’s going on, but I can’t.”
“What do you mean by that? Is there something else?”
“Not that you need to know about.” His face was set in stubborn lines. “I care for you. I’ll take care of you. Isn’t that enough?”
“No, it isn’t! I didn’t ask you to take care of me. I can take care of myself.” Her shock and hurt were swiftly being replaced by a burgeoning wave of anger. “What I wanted was honesty and respect, and I’m getting neither from you. Why can’t you tell me what’s going on?”
“Because I don’t want to involve you. I have to handle this myself. I have to get her—get it—out of my life.”
Kasey drew in a breath. “Did you say get her out of your life? Who do you mean, your wife? Did you lie to me about her, too?”
“No, I didn’t. Look, Kasey,” he said, moving closer to her, for the first time, “that was a slip, and I think you overreacted to it. If you’ll just be calm—”
“Don’t talk to me like that, Will. Or William,” she amended bitterly. “And don’t expect me to be calm when I’ve just found out that every word you’ve said to me is a lie.”
“That’s not true, Kasey.”
“Then what is true? Why won’t you tell me why the hell you’re going through this stupid charade, lying to me, to my friends, even to the apartment staff? What’s the matter with you? Tell me what it’s all about!” she demanded, feeling as if her head were about to explode.
Her angry glare was met by his own closed gaze. “I told you once, Kasey. I’m not going to involve you in something that I need to handle myself, alone. If you’ll just trust me for a while—”
Kasey couldn’t believe her ears. “Trust you? Trust you! I’d just as soon trust a roomful of rattlesnakes.”
“Kasey—”
“No more,” she shouted with a sob as she pushed past him and ran down the hall. After gathering her clothes and handbag, she headed for the front door.
Will grabbed her arm from behind, but she pulled angrily away. “Don’t touch me,” she warned, “or I’ll scream the building down. I’m going home. Alone. And I’m going to count my blessings that I found out about you when I did.”
“I won’t let you go, Kasey,” Will said, moving around in front of her and blocking her way. “Not until we talk about this. If you’ll just calm down—”
She looked up at him, her face white with rage. “I’ll calm down all right—when you tell me who you are, why you’re playing these damned games with me and with everyone else.” She took a deep breath. “Until then, get out of my way!”
Will swore bitterly under his breath as Kasey pushed by him.
She was out the door, fumbling with her keys. Not realizing that she wore nothing but his T-shirt, she charged to her apartment, unlocked it and pushed her way inside. She slammed the door behind her and leaned back against it, her eyes closed, breathing deeply. Then she turned the bolt and put on the chain, as if by doing that she would keep Will out of her life.
“Fool, fool, fool,” she muttered as she stalked down the hall to her living room, ignoring the pounding on her door. She didn’t give a damn if Will knocked all night long. Kasey had always been slow to anger, but when the anger hit, she exploded like a volcano. The eruption had begun, and she had a feeling there was more to come.
By the time she reached her bedroom, the pounding had stopped, but now the phone by her bed was ringing. She couldn’t listen to that all night, Kasey decided as she picked up the receiver and tossed it on the bed. So much for Will. Let him talk to himself for a while. All she wanted was a cool, clean shower to wash away every trace of him that lingered on her skin.
She went into the bathroom and had pulled Will’s T-shirt halfway off, when she saw the writing on the mirror. It jumped out at her in blood-red letters:
DIE BITCH
She couldn’t stop screaming. The sound of her voice reverberated around the room and echoed in her ears. When she finally stopped, her breath came in rapid gasps. She held on to the basin with both hands, steadying her shaking legs, fighting for control until her heart began to beat less wildly.
Then the question pounded in her head. “No,” she cried. “Not Will! It can’t be him.” The trembling began again and this time she couldn’t control it. She collapsed onto the side of the tub. “It’s not possible,” she whispered.
But if not Will, then who? Someone had got into her apartment, invaded her privacy and threatened her, and all she could do was shake.
“No, dammit,” she said aloud. “I won’t be intimidated! Whatever is going on, I’m getting to the bottom of it.”
She rushed into the bedroom, pulled on her jeans and stuck her feet into her sneakers. That’s when it hit her. She knew how the intruder had got in. She’d left the balcony doors open!
She charged angrily into the living room and saw that she was right. The doors were unlocked. Cursing herself for her carelessness, Kasey pulled them together and fastened the latch. That’s when she heard the noise—from the balcony. Someone was out there!
She didn’t stop to wonder who it was. This time, she wasn’t going to take any chances. She dashed into the kitchen, grabbed the wall phone and punched in 911.
But when she put the phone to her ear, there was no ringing. She hung up and tried ag
ain. No dial tone. No sound at all. The phone was dead!
She slammed down the receiver, and as she caught her breath, trying to think, she heard the noise again, louder this time. Suddenly, she saw a shape on the terrace, a dark menacing shadow, beating against the door.
Then she remembered. The bedroom phone was off the hook! She ran across the living room, heading toward the hall just as the figure threw his body against the balcony doors. With the splintering of wood and breaking of glass, he hurled himself into her apartment.
Kasey froze for an instant and then turned to run, but he was faster. He grabbed her around the waist and held her high, lifting her feet from the floor. Impotently, she kicked out at him, struggling wildly in his arms.
“Kasey, stop it. It’s me, Will.”
“I know that,” she cried, “and I’m calling the police.”
“No, you’re not. Not yet, anyway.” He held her fast, and Kasey knew she wasn’t going to get away.
“Then I’ll scream. If you don’t let me go, I’ll scream and—”
“You screamed before, Kasey. That’s why I broke in. I thought you were in trouble—”
“I was—I am! And you’re the cause of it.”
“There’s no one else in here?” he asked.
She shook her head. The impulse to scream had passed.
He carried her to the sofa and sat down beside her, his arms tight around her. His mouth was close to her ear, and she could feel the heat and power emanating from his body. “Listen to me, Kasey. I’m not going to hurt you, but you have to tell me what happened. Who frightened you?”
She fell back against the sofa. “No one. There’s a death threat on my mirror, that’s all.”
“What?”
“Yes, I don’t know who did it, but I know that I’m scared, and I’m tired of being scared. I’m calling the police—”
Will was up in a heartbeat, heading for the bathroom. He reappeared only seconds later, swearing under his breath, and sat down beside her. “I never meant for this to happen, Kasey. Not for you to be threatened, too...”
“Threatened too?” she cried, her anger returning. “It’s time to stop playing games with me, Will. Now you have to tell me what the hell’s going on.”
Will’s face was drawn and white, and there was a deep dark look in his eyes.
“I’m not sure where to begin,” he said slowly.
“At the beginning,” Kasey demanded.
The time had come; Will knew that. He put his head in his hands and was quiet for a long time, thinking, or trying to. It wasn’t easy for him to tell Kasey, to make enough sense out of what was happening that she would understand. “This is going to sound crazy,” he said finally, looking over at her. She seemed so young and vulnerable, dressed in his oversize T-shirt, her blue eyes filled with pain.
“I want to know,” she persisted.
“Okay,” he said. “I’m being stalked.”
He watched her reaction. Her face was tight with tension, the pain still in her eyes. What had he done to her?
“It started months ago—”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked.
“I didn’t want any harm to come to you.”
The look she gave him was one of total disbelief.
“All right. I know now that I was wrong, Kasey. I just never expected her to go after you.”
Kasey sank back on the sofa.
“Do you still want to hear this?”
“Why not?” she said with a shrug.
“A few months ago, I got a letter from a woman who claimed to be a big fan. I answered the letter, which I always try to do. In this case, that was a big mistake.”
Kasey made a disdainful noise.
“I was working at my place in Connecticut, a little cottage back in the woods. She began to call me, telling me how much she loved my work. Then how much she loved me. The calls got weirder. We were meant to be together, according to her, and nothing I said could convince her that I wasn’t interested.”
“Erotomania,” Kasey said, almost to herself.
“Yes. An obsession. Somehow, she’d learned what she wanted to know, that I wasn’t married and there was no woman in my life. Except her, of course,” he commented wryly. “I thought getting an unlisted number would put an end to it, but the calls kept coming. I have no idea how she got my number, but she did. That’s when I got really angry.”
“About time, I’d say,” Kasey commented bitterly.
“I know, Kasey, but I didn’t realize how deeply disturbed she was. I tried to handle her with understanding at first.”
“What happened when you got angry?”
“She decided I was committed to her.”
Kasey frowned at him.
“I know, it’s crazy. But that’s often how it happens. I’ve actually read those books you discovered in my office. People with this disease often take rejections as ‘tests of loyalty.’ No matter what I said, she still believed that I was involved in her life in an intimate, fateful way. She even thought one of my TV movies was based on her life, which proved we were soul mates.”
“My God,” Kasey said.
“It gets worse. When I didn’t respond to her letters or the notes in my car and under my front door, she threatened me.”
Kasey gave a shiver and wrapped her arms around herself. “What do you mean?”
“They were death threats, actually. If she couldn’t have me, no one would. I called the police, but there wasn’t much they could do. Doubled patrols, added shifts in my area, but they never even saw the woman. Neither did I. She was playing games with all of us. Finally, the cops suggested I move out of the house and lose myself in a big city for a while—”
“That’s when you came to New York.”
“No, not then. I was damned if I would be driven away from my own home. But that was before she broke into the house when I was out. Trashed the computer, destroyed scripts, burned family photos, slashed furniture. God, it was a mess. And she left a note, of course. She wrote that she wanted to become the most important person in my life. She was succeeding in that wish,” he said bitterly.
“You finally got out,” Kasey said.
Will looked over at her, trying to figure out what she thought of his indecisiveness. Not much, he decided. “My agent was the catalyst for my leaving, I’ll admit. He got together with the network producer and put pressure on me to get the special project I was working on finished. I wasn’t having much luck in Connecticut so I agreed to go into hiding until it was completed. They insisted that I keep my real identity a secret.”
“Even from the woman you were sleeping with?” Kasey’s voice was bitter.
Will got up from the sofa and walked to the middle of the room before turning to look at Kasey. “You want to know something? The first day I met you, I wondered if you could be the stalker.”
“That’s why you were so wary! And I thought you were just being arrogant.”
“I couldn’t trust anyone at that point. Then when we ended up in the basement—”
“You thought I’d set that up.”
“Until I realized how scared you were of me.”
Kasey started to laugh. Her shoulders shook, and she covered her face with her hands. Will sat beside her and pulled her hands away. “Are you getting hysterical, Kasey?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know! You see, I thought I was being stalked.”
“Not by me?”
“No, by the guy I told you about, the one who used to work at the restaurant. Oh, God.” Her eyes widened in fear. “It was her, wasn’t it? She’s responsible for all the weird things that have been happening lately. And now she’s after me!”
Will’s lips tightened. “Yes, I’m afraid so.” He watched her face as that information sank in.
“When we came back from the park... The TV cameras... She saw you.”
Will nodded. “I think she saw both of us. Hell, Kasey, I thought I could protect you better if you knew not
hing about her.”
Kasey let out a deep, disbelieving sigh.
“Maybe I was wrong—”
“Maybe?”
“Kasey, we don’t know what would have happened if you’d known about her. Sometimes a little knowledge can cause big trouble.”
“Isn’t this big trouble?” she asked.
“You’re right,” he said, reaching out and touching her arm. “We’re both in trouble, and it’s my fault. I didn’t mean for this to happen. I hope you understand that.”
Kasey stood up and pushed her tangled hair away from her face. “You lied to me and put me in danger. That’s not easy to understand, especially when I...I care about you.”
“I care about you, too, Kasey. We can get past this. I know we can.”
He reached for her again, but this time Kasey brushed his hand aside. When she spoke, her words lacked emotion. “I’m not sure about that, Will, but I’m certain of one thing. We have to call the police and tell them everything that’s happened.”
* * *
FROM EXPERIENCE, Will didn’t expect much help from the police. He told Kasey that, but she insisted on calling. What else could they do?
Two uniformed officers arrived half an hour later and took what seemed to Will to be cursory notes. The woman, Officer Gwen Hererra, was just slightly less disinterested than her partner, Ted Delansky, an older man with graying red hair and mustache, who was barely able to conceal a yawn.
“So you moved down here from Connecticut knowing some woman was stalking you?” Delansky asked.
“I moved here because she was stalking me,” Will corrected. “I thought that I’d eluded her.”
“And now you think she’s found you and is harassing Ms. Halliday, too.”
“It seems obvious, Officer Delansky,” Will answered, “that there’s a pattern here.”
“Not to me, Mr. Mastane,” Delansky stated emphatically.
Officer Hererra explained for her partner. “We have no evidence that the threat on Ms. Halliday’s mirror has anything to do with you, Mr. Mastane. It could be totally unrelated. You haven’t seen the woman since you moved here.”
“Correction, again,” Will said. “To my knowledge, I’ve never seen the woman.”
Stranger in My Arms Page 14