by Laura Drewry
“I’m not worried about me,” Maya said. “But what about you?”
“I’ll be fine. He’s just trying to intimidate me.” Hopefully, that sounded more convincing to Maya than it did to Ellie.
“How stupid is this guy?” Maya laughed, but it was an angry laugh. “Ellie Palmer doesn’t get intimidated by anyone.”
Yesterday Ellie would have agreed wholeheartedly, but this morning she’d been caught off guard and hit where she was most vulnerable—in a veiled threat against her friends and old Mrs. G.
Between customers, she made the same calls to Regan and Jayne, who both begged her to call Brett. Ellie refused, instead making them both promise to tell her if Kurt went anywhere near them.
The only time Kurt left his spot was to go grab a take-out coffee from the Cactus Café, so on a whim, Ellie called the bylaw officer to ask about loitering. No surprise there; if he wasn’t obstructing anyone, he wasn’t doing anything wrong.
Shortly after, as she was showing one of her regulars the new boots that had just arrived, she saw Nick come out of the café with a cup of coffee and head straight across the street toward her store. No, not her store: the bench in front of it. And Kurt didn’t look even a little bit surprised to see him.
A few seconds later, Carter came strolling up and stood beside Nick, completely blocking her view of Kurt. Their body language was neither tense nor threatening; in fact, they both looked pretty relaxed, with Nick periodically sipping his coffee and Carter nodding at whatever was being said.
Next thing she knew, Kurt stood up, gave her a slow salute, with a not-so-amused smile, and walked off.
Nick and Carter stayed where they were for a minute, coming inside only after her customer left.
“You okay?” Nick frowned. “Did you call the cops?”
“Thanks, I’m fine. I called Bylaw and they said he wasn’t doing anything wrong. What did Kurt say to you?”
“Nothing really—just that he was enjoying the weather.”
Carter headed straight for the lingerie.
“Guy seems like a prick,” he said, lifting a pink sheer babydoll from one of the racks. “D’you have this in black?”
“Are you shittin’ us right now?” Nick asked.
“What? I can’t buy Red a little something while we’re here?”
“You sure it’s for Regan?” Chuckling, Ellie twirled the rack clockwise and lifted the sheer black nightie off its hanger. “Or yourself?”
Carter’s mouth lifted in a half-smile. “She’ll be the one wearing it.”
“Yeah,” Nick snorted. “For about two seconds.”
After ringing it up, Ellie wrapped the scrap of fabric in a piece of tissue, then slipped it in a bag.
“I appreciate you guys coming down here,” she said. “But you didn’t have to. This is what he did the last time, and there was nothing the cops or Bylaw could do then, either.”
“Maybe not.” Carter shrugged. “Still, if he messes with you, he messes with us.”
Nick agreed. “The guy’s got a record, Ellie, so even if the cops can’t do anything about him sitting out there, they might appreciate a heads-up that he’s in town.”
Ellie smiled but didn’t say anything.
“You sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Really.”
By the look they gave each other, neither one of them believed her for a second.
“What time you done here?” Carter asked. “Six?”
“Usually, yeah.”
“Good—come over to the clinic when you’re done and I’ll take you home.”
“No,” she laughed. “I’m sure he’s just trying to freak me out. I’ll be fine.”
Another look passed between them, this one more of a “Now what?”
“I have my phone,” she said, herding them both toward the door. “If something happens, I promise I’ll call, okay? So thank you very much, but you both have jobs, so away you go.”
“You’ll call?” Nick repeated.
“Scout’s honor.” And she would if she thought it was absolutely necessary, but she sincerely hoped it wouldn’t come to that. The last thing she needed was either one of them going caveman because they thought a woman was in peril.
The two of them were a little over the top about things like that.
She didn’t see Kurt again that day, though as closing time grew nearer, she couldn’t deny she felt a prick of worry. Not enough that she’d call Nick or Carter back, but enough that she’d keep her keys clutched between her fingers in case she needed a quick weapon.
With everything secured in the back, she shut the lights off and headed out, making double sure the door was locked. As she turned to go, a white Interceptor with the distinctive RCMP emblem on the side pulled up.
The driver’s door opened, and without so much as a hello, Dudley Do-Right walked around and opened the passenger door.
“You can either get in or I can follow you home—the choice is yours.”
“Oh, for…” Ellie huffed out a hard breath. “Are you kidding me?”
His left eyebrow lifted slowly. “Do I look like I’m kidding?”
“Not usually, no.” After a brief stare-down, she finally picked the lesser of the two embarrassments and strapped herself into the passenger seat. “Never got to sit up front before. Can I play with the siren?”
“No.” After letting a kid on a bike cross ahead of them, he wheeled the car out of the parking spot and headed down the road. “Is there something you want to tell me?”
“Is there…hmm…Ooh, I finally sold that pair of jade earrings I’ve had in the store for like a year and a half. That was exciting.”
“Ellie.”
“I read ahead in our Drive Safe workbook, so I’m all set for the test on traffic signs.”
Boy, with a glare like that he was probably terrifying in an interrogation.
“Oh, come on, Ponch, we both know you won’t do anything about him being here, so what’s the point?”
“How can we do anything if we don’t know there’s a problem? You should’ve called us, not Bylaw.”
“And said what?” She readjusted the bag on her lap, folded her hands over the top, then toyed with the handle. “That there’s a guy sitting outside on the bench drinking coffee?”
“How about letting us know that the guy sitting on the bench is a drug dealer from your past who’s getting up in your face?”
“Uh-huh, and then what? He barely touched me.”
Whatever he muttered was muffled by the hand he rubbed over his mouth, but it sounded an awful lot like the F-bomb. “Did he threaten you?”
“Not outright, no.”
“What does that mean?” He didn’t even look at her as he wheeled the car down Victoria toward her street.
“It means if I told you word for word what he said, it wouldn’t be considered threatening. It was his tone.”
“When we get to your place, you’ll have to tell me exactly what he said. How long has he been here?”
“I don’t know.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“About five years ago, when I testified against him.”
She’d never admit it out loud, but it was kind of impressive the way Brett could fire off questions and absorb the information while still keeping an eye on what was going on out on the streets.
“Has he been here before?”
“Not that I know of.”
He pulled into her driveway, parked behind her car, and shut the cruiser off.
“Thank you,” she forced out as she opened her door. “But as you boys in blue made sure I knew last time, unless he makes a direct threat, there’s nothing legally that you guys can do, so if that happens I’ll be sure to call. Until then…”
He wasn’t even listening. Instead, he climbed out of the car and followed her to the door while talking into the mic clipped on his shoulder. “Dispatch Alpha 3…10-76 at 2-6-4-9 Graemsay Road…10-4.”
She barely had the door open before he pushed past her.
“No, please, come on in.”
Ignoring her, he did a quick search downstairs, including the closets and outside the back door.
“Where’s you mom?” He was halfway up the stairs before he stopped and indicated that’s where he was going.
Ellie dumped her bag on the couch and headed to the kitchen for a glass of wine. “She went to Kelowna to visit my sister.”
“Good.” With only three rooms upstairs, it didn’t take him long to do his snooping and come back down. By then she not only had her wine poured, she’d also set a tall glass of milk on the table for him.
“Thank you.” He didn’t smile, but at least it eased the frown off his forehead as he pulled out his mini recorder. “Okay, tell me what happened back in Toronto five years ago.”
“Constable Hudak took all this information last year, after the hit-and-run. Isn’t it in the file?”
“It’s there, and I’ve read it, but I need you to tell me, in case there’s anything that was missed, so let’s start with your relationship with Kurt. You and he were…dating?”
“We’d been living together a couple months before the cops showed up at the door with their warrant.”
“Mm-hmm. And you had no idea what he was involved in?” He immediately raised his hands, palms out. “I have to ask.”
“No,” she forced out through gritted teeth. “I didn’t know. He smoked a little pot once in a while, but never in our apartment and never around me. I can’t stand the smell of it.”
Brett nodded slowly. “Was he ever violent with you?”
He was asking the same questions the cops had asked her the last time, the only difference being that those cops had sounded bored. Poncherello sounded pissed.
“No, never.” Ellie closed her eyes and huffed out a hard breath. “The Kurt I knew was funny and sweet, he was into hockey and fixing up cars—what guy isn’t? He and his brother, Del, owned a garage, which is where I first met him, and they worked long hours. He told me it was because they were still trying to build their business, and I believed him. I know, stupid, right?”
“Not at all,” he said. “Do you know how the police found out about the heroin?”
“From what I understand, one of Kurt’s customers got busted for possession. He gave them Kurt’s name, and they put eyes on the garage.”
Brett nodded. “Sounds like they had quite the setup going in that garage. So after he was arrested, they searched your apartment?”
“Yup. And despite what you or those other cops might think, I never looked in his stupid hockey bag. It’s a hockey bag, the same kind you see in every other household across the country; I did a lot of things for that asshole, but I wouldn’t touch his equipment. Washing it was his job, one he rarely did, which is why I made him keep it out on the deck.”
“And that’s where they found it?”
It didn’t matter how many years had passed; it still infuriated her that she could have been so stupid.
“Yes.”
“Okay, so tell me everything that happened after that.”
She couldn’t imagine what good this might do, going over everything that was already in the file, but if that look on his face meant anything, he wasn’t planning on going anywhere until he had the whole story again. So she topped up both their glasses and started from the beginning.
“Del’s wife apparently knew everything about the drugs, so since I was living with Kurt, the cops assumed I was in on it, too, and finding the bag of heroin on my deck was all the proof they needed to arrest and charge me.” Staring down at her glass, Ellie snorted quietly. “They wouldn’t even let me get dressed, just took me to the station in my pajamas.”
Brett’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t say anything.
“They couldn’t prove I’d ever touched any of it or that I’d been involved in any of the deals, so the judge dismissed the case. By then, of course, I’d already lost my job and everything was a mess.”
Even with his recorder going, Brett still scribbled notes as she spoke.
“And between the time you were both arrested and the time you went to court, you were both out on bail? And that’s when you filed the first complaint? Were you still living with him at that point?”
“No! As soon as I was released, I grabbed what I needed and stayed at a motel until I could get my own place. He still managed to find me even though I’d changed my cell number and never took out a landline. I’d already been fired by then, so they couldn’t have been the ones to give him my new contact info, though I doubt they would have anyway.”
“What did he do to you?”
Snorting, Ellie started to lift her glass, then stopped when she realized her hand had begun to shake again. “Started out the same way as today.”
When Brett tipped his head, waiting, she told him everything that had happened: the way Kurt would sit at the bus stop outside her apartment for hours, the daily phone calls, how he showed up at the same grocery store or bank when she was there, the deliveries of black tulips, and then she told him about the time Kurt broke in.
Everything he’d done up to that point had unnerved her, but knowing he’d been in her apartment had freaked her right out.
“Okay.” Brett nodded slowly, thoughtfully. “There was no actual proof it was him who got in? No prints or anything?”
“No, that was the problem, but I knew it was him. His favorite song was blaring from my iPod dock, he’d left crackers, cheese, and pickles on the kitchen counter—his favorite snack—and he’d rolled around in my bed.”
Another nod. The other cops never nodded like that; they just looked at her like they were bored, and though it pained her to admit it even to herself, Brett’s nods were oddly comforting, even though none of this, probably, would go further than his notebook.
“So his reason for being here is to get back together with you, is that right?”
“That’s what he says.”
“Mm-hmm.” He took a long swallow of his milk and tapped his pen against the table. “And what did you tell him?”
She still couldn’t believe she’d said it, or how easily the lie had slipped off her tongue. “I told him I was seeing someone else.”
There was a moment of awkward silence before he cleared his throat. “Are you?”
“No.”
“Did he believe you?”
“I don’t know.” Ellie snorted softly. “He knows I don’t lie, but he’s been watching me long enough to know who I meet when I go out, and for the most part, it’s Maya, Jayne, and Regan.”
“Any idea how long he’s been watching you?”
“Not a clue.”
He pored over his notes for a long moment before nodding slowly. “Anything else?”
“No, that’s it.”
“Okay.” His blue eyes clouded slightly, then cleared, staring straight back at her, piercing, searching. “You’re aware that we looked into him after your hit-and-run last year, right?”
“Yeah, but he was still on probation then and not allowed to leave Ontario, so I never understood why you even bothered.”
“We look at every possible scenario, and given your past complaints against him…”
Ellie nodded slowly. Everything about that accident was weird. She’d been driving Regan’s car, waiting for the light to change, when that huge dark-colored truck came barreling right at her. Before she had time to react, she was peeling the air bag off her face. In the year since, she knew Brett had worked hard to find the driver, but it still frustrated her that whoever it was was still out there.
“Look, Ellie.” Brett’s voice, much softer than she’d heard it before, pulled her back to the present. “I understand they weren’t able to do much with your complaints against Kurt the last time, and I’m sorry about that. No matter what happens here, we’re going to do everything we can to keep you safe.”
Her mouth opened, but nothing came out. In all the time
since this first started with Kurt, no one had ever said that to her before. Not the cops who arrested her, not the cops who took her complaint against Kurt, and not even her own father. All any of them had done was make her feel like she was the problem, that she was overreacting and wasting their time.
So it didn’t make a spit of sense to Ellie that the one person who had every reason to blow her off was the one sitting at her kitchen table making her feel safer than she’d felt since before the Toronto cops had pushed through her door waving their search warrant.
“Do you want to go stay at Maya’s or maybe have her come here?”
After a couple of tries, she finally managed to swallow.
“No. You don’t think he’s going to do anything, do you?”
“It’s never a good idea to try to guess what someone else is thinking, especially in situations like these.”
“Right. Yeah.”
As he pushed to his feet, he pulled a card from his pocket and held it out to her. “I suspect you probably burned the one I gave you after your accident last year.”
“No, I didn’t.” Her face flamed as she sucked both lips back behind her teeth. “I think I shredded it.”
“Nice,” he grunted. “Keep this one. You understand the case will be easier to work if you contact me directly instead of routing everything through Jayne like it’s third-period French or something.”
Ellie sputtered over a laugh. “And the cop zings me again. I had no idea you were such a smart-ass.”
He stopped at the door, his hand wrapped around the handle. “That’s probably because you’re always too busy ignoring me.”
Ouch.
“Your file number’s on the back of the card. Don’t let him in, don’t answer his calls, and if you see him anywhere near this place, you call me, understand?”
Again she opened her mouth, but he talked over her.
“Don’t call Jayne, don’t call Regan, and don’t call Maya. Call me. Or 911. Got it?”
“Yeah,” she whispered. “Got it.”