by L A Walton
“Hey are you okay?”
Laci looked at her brother who was concerned. She shook her head. “I was scared Declan. I thought someone was hiding in that room…watching me.”
“We already went through everything. No one was in there Laci.”
“I know…but it’s still scary.”
Declan sat down next to his sister and hugged her. “You know…I’m here for you right?”
“Yeah I know. Remember? You promised not to die on me.”
He laughed, “Yeah. I promise.”
Officer Joe Bishop was throwing a stress ball up into the air, when his partner snatched it.
“What gives?” he asked her.
“What gives? I should be asking you that. You want to explain what happened at the psychologist’s house?”
“Not really.”
“C’mon Joe. Tell me what’s up. It sounds like you two had a run in before.”
“We did.”
“That was very informative. You mind giving me an answer that’s longer than two words?”
“Yes. I. Do. There, that’s three words.”
She playfully hit him on the head with the thin file that she was holding. “Butthole,” she laughed.
Joe had smiled at her remark but as soon as she walked away, he frowned.
Dr. Laci Cummings.
He thought of what her brother had said while they were at her house.
“I told you. His girlfriend probably dumped him because of your show.”
Declan Cummings wasn’t completely off base. His girlfriend hadn’t dumped him because of Dr. Cummings’s show. She had dumped him because of her friendship with Laci. Joe had thought Amber Griffin was his soulmate. She wasn't the perfect girlfriend but to Joe, she was very close.
He had put up with her constant comments on Laci’ theories of a healthy relationship. He had told her many times not to take what Laci had said too seriously but Amber still listened to her friend. Joe remembered having to write up a dream journal because Amber heard Laci talking about the benefits of having one. At times he felt like there were three people in his relationship with Amber, and he had never even met Laci. He had avoided meeting the psychologist because he was convinced that she loved offering relationship advice to her friends. He thought that perhaps she adored the attention that came with being touted as a love expert. He didn’t really think that Laci was sending herself notes and trying to get attention. He did think it was probably all harmless and she was just making the notes into a bigger deal than they needed to be.
He thought of how Amber had dumped him. It was when they were on the way to meet his parents. “Laci said that maybe I’m feeling anxious about our relationship because I’m not happy in it. I think she’s right.”
Joe had pleaded with Amber to give him another chance. She refused and continued to quote Dr. Cummings’s advice on relationships.
“Hey what’s wrong with you Bishop?”
Joe looked up to see his partner staring at him.
“I’ve been calling you but you were in some kind of daze.”
“Sorry…what’s up?”
She handed him a file, “The phone number that sent the texts to Dr. Cummings. Guess who it’s registered to.”
“Who?”
“Look at the file and see.”
Joe opened the file and scanned the single sheet of paper that was in it. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Nope. Now what do you think is going on here?”
“I don’t know, but I’m sure going to have fun finding out,” he smirked.
He left the open file on his desk.
The name linked to the phone number was none
other than Laci Cummings.
CHAPTER 10
Laci stood in her bedroom. The only light she had to see by was from the dim screen of her laptop. She could feel her body tense up as she slowly looked around and listened for any unusual noises. She had just done her nightly check of all the locks in the house. Every door and window leading to the outdoors was locked. As a single woman, even living in a fairly safe part of town, she knew there was no such thing as being overly cautious. Declan was living with her now, but she still felt a sense of comfort after making sure that everything was locked.
A cold draft from the small air conditioning vent blew over her, causing her to shiver. She quickly jumped into her bed and crawled under her sheets. She refused to turn on her bedroom light because that would be admitting defeat to the nameless person that was tormenting her. She didn’t want to be afraid in her own home. No one should have that sort of power over her.
She was in her bed trying to fall asleep when the door to her bedroom slowly opened, revealing a stream of light onto her face. “What the heck?”
“Are you asleep Laci?” Declan asked.
“Well I’m definitely not now,” she muttered.
“Sorry. I just wanted to check on you.”
“Just turn on the light Declan. I can’t sleep anyway.”
He flipped the switch, causing the room to be flooded in light. “Stop trying to be braver than you are and admit that you’re scared shitless right now.”
Laci frowned, “Did you seriously come here just to tell me that?”
“I know you Laci. You try to act tough and independent...but you’re not fooling me. This is exactly like the time when mom and dad died.”
Laci didn’t respond so he continued, “You tried to act like you were okay but I saw you Laci. Crying in the kitchen…I saw you.”
“So what? Our parents just died. Of course I’m going to cry! Is there something wrong with that?”
“Chill sis. No need to be so defensive. There’s nothing wrong with it. I’m just saying that in front of me you were trying to be this brave and strong person…but you didn’t need to be.”
Laci hadn’t realized that her eyes were watering. She stifled back a sob and wiped her eyes, “You’re younger than me. I didn’t want you to be more scared than you already were. It was just you and me. We’re all we have left in this family.”
Declan chuckled, “Laci I was twenty-one. Stop acting like I’m a kid. If you’re scared…tell me. I can help you just like you would help me.”
“And how can you help me? Somebody was watching me Declan but I have no idea how. Heck, for all I know they could be watching me right now!” The thought sent a ripple of fear through her body and she hid her face in her hands.
“Well…you can talk to me. Also, there’s this…” he had been holding a red gift bag and he placed it in front of her, “Ta daaaa! Your baby brother is bearing gifts.”
Laci sniffled and wiped her eyes again. She looked at the red bag and back to Declan, “What is it?”
“Open it and see,” he urged.
She opened the bag and sighed, “You’re an idiot Declan.” She pulled out a DVD of The Karate Kid.
He started laughing, “What? Everything you need to know about fighting is in that film Laci!”
Also in the bag were a pair of brass knuckles, some pepper spray, and a Taser.
Laci was shocked. “Where did you get all this? Is it even legal to have?”
Declan shrugged, “I know people.”
“Apparently we need to talk about your association.”
“Hey, they’re not bad…their behaviors are bad. Isn’t that what all you shrinks say?”
Laci rolled her eyes. “Thanks Declan.” Despite the fact that she wouldn’t carry around so many weapons in her purse, he had once again cheered her up.
“You’re my sister. Of course I’m going to help you out.”
Laci gave a weak smile as she put everything back into the bag.
“Laci, the police will catch this guy.”
She nodded, “As long as that Bishop cop isn’t in charge of things, I’m sure they will. God, did you see the way he looked at me Declan? Like I was pond scum? He practically accused me of lying. Why would I make any of this up?”
“He’s a joke.
Just forget about him. Besides, his partner seemed like she knew what she was doing and she was pretty cute.”
“Will you stop? I’m trying to be serious here Declan.”
“So am I! She was cute. Maybe I’ll ask her for her number.”
“That’s my brother folks…the perpetual horn dog.”
“Don’t you mean corn dog?”
Laci laughed, “No! Are you sure you graduated college?”
Declan laughed, “See? You’re not scared anymore are you?”
She shook her head, “No. Thank you Declan. If you want, I can set you up with one of my friends.”
“No way!”
“What? Why wouldn’t you want to date one of my friends?”
“I can only imagine how horrible it would be. My sister, the love doctor, giving advice to her friend who happens to be my girlfriend? Heck no! That wouldn’t work.”
“Okay fine. I won’t set you up. Try and get a girlfriend all on your own.”
Declan laughed, “How did we start talking about my love life?”
“I’m not sure but you should go to bed. I’ll be fine. I have to see clients tomorrow morning so I need to rest.”
“More wackadoos coming to the house,” Declan whispered as he got up and left Laci to herself. She felt better knowing that her brother was there for her. She wasn’t sure if she could handle this alone. She hoped that Officer Stewart was able to discover who was sending her texts.
“Laci I’m meeting my friend Daniel. We’re gonna grab some lunch at Jalisco’s. You wanna come with us?”
Laci was busy looking through some files in her study, “No. I have to see a couple, remember? They’ll be here any minute so make yourself scarce. Eat an enchilada for me.”
Declan smiled, “I’ll eat a whole plate of them for you!”
“Just don’t come crying to me when you have bubble guts!”
Declan scrunched his face in mock horror, “Do your clients know how nasty you are sometimes?”
“Do your girlfriends know how nasty you are?”
He winked, “If they’re lucky.”
She laughed and threw a stress ball at him, “Get out of here!”
He quickly left before she threw something else at him. Ten minutes later the doorbell rang. Laci opened the door to see one of her more entertaining couples. Carrie and Phillip Baker. Phillip was a total conspiracy theorist which drove Carrie nuts. When they had first started dating, she thought it was a small quirk but his theories began to evolve and escalate over the years. What she once thought was adorable was now annoying.
“Hi Mr. and Mrs. Baker. Follow me,” Laci led them to her study.
Phillip Baker was looking around the office. “There aren’t any secret listening devices in here are there?”
His wife Carrie rolled her eyes.
“No, there aren’t any secret listening devices in here,” Laci smiled at him.
It was a long session for Laci. She tried to help Carrie and Phillip come up with a compromise of having a set time to discuss his many theories with Carrie. In turn, Carrie suggested Phillip spend time with her exercising to some workout on their Xbox Kinect.
“No! I hate the Kinect Carrie. It’s just another way for the government to spy on us,” Phillip crossed his arms as he sat on the leather couch in Laci’ office.
“If you expect me to listen to you rant about how the president is really an alien…then you should do a simple workout with me on the Xbox,” Carrie also crossed her arms.
“Carrie, I’m serious. Nowadays people can easily spy on you through your Kinect, your laptop, even your cellphone. Don’t you watch Dateline?”
“Is that show still even on?” Carrie asked.
Normally, Laci would’ve stopped Phillip from going on about one of his conspiracy theories but this was interesting to her. “What do you mean? How is that possible?”
Seeing that he had a willing ear, Phillip leaned forward and smiled. “You believe me, don’t you? Well…it’s easy. It takes less than five minutes for anyone to hack into your system.”
“How do they do that?” Laci asked before she could stop herself.
“Dr. Cummings!” Carrie couldn’t believe Laci was practically egging him on to continue.
“That’s easy. They do it through your e-mail.”
“E-mail?”
“Yes. A complex bit of code delivered to you via a simple e-mail. You open up their Trojan horse and bam! They’re spying on you. I heard of a case where a man was spying on several hundred women. He even started blackmailing some of them. You can google that. It’s true.”
“Blackmailing them?”
“Yeah. I mean…we do all sorts of things in front of an open laptop. Shoot, I bet most people carry around their phones with them everywhere they go. I bet you’d think twice if you knew someone was looking at you from the camera of it.”
Laci didn’t realize that she was leaning forward in her chair, she was so fascinated with what Phillip Baker was telling her.
“How would you know if someone sent you one of these e-mails?”
“You don’t. Not unless they try to blackmail you…or you get your computer checked out.” Phillip held up his smart phone. Laci noticed that the front and back camera on his phone were covered with black electrical tape. “You see that? Right now my phone is off, because I don’t want them to listen in. When I turn my phone back on, they might be able to hear me but they won’t be able to see me.”
Carrie sighed, “He did the same thing to our laptops at home. I have to remove the tape anytime I want to skype.”
“So any kind of e-mail can carry this…Trojan horse?”
“It's usually with some sort of attachment. Have you opened any e-mails with attachments?”
Laci thought back and couldn’t remember downloading any odd attachments. She saw Carrie who was looking at her watch and remembered she needed to remain professional. This wasn’t the time to be exploring possible stalkers. She navigated the conversation away from Phillip’s theory of people watching him through his phone’s camera and eventually ended the session. As soon as they were gone, she ran upstairs to her laptop.
She stared at it as it sat open. It was always open.
“This has to be it. There’s no other explanation,” Laci sat down in front of it and began combing through her personal e-mails. All of them were from people she knew and trusted. Then it hit her.
The advice column e-mails.
She had only received one e-mail. “Duh Laci. How could you forget?”
She was talking to herself as she scrolled to the e-mail that was an e-card. She had to download the attachment to see it and for it to play the music. She placed a small post it in front of the computer's webcam. She then dialed the police and asked to speak with Officer Stewart.
“Yes, Dr. Cummings. I’ll be sure to note that in our file. You’re going to have it checked out? That’s a good idea. Be sure to let me know what they find ma’am.”
Officer Stewart looked at her partner Joe Bishop who was smirking at her.
“What?” she asked him in a defensive tone.
“Why didn’t you just tell her that you know she’s full of it?”
“Will you stop being an ass for once and do your job? What if someone is really stalking her? There are a lot of ways for someone to get a phone in another person’s name. It’s not totally unheard of you know.”
“Yeah…yeah.”
Officer Stewart didn’t understand why her partner was giving Dr. Cummings such a hard time. He wasn’t always such a jerk…well not to the extent that he was to Laci Cummings.
“Yeah well unless you want another complaint from her, maybe you should just keep your personal feelings to yourself.”
“Personal feelings?”
“Did I stutter? I’ve worked with you for a few years and although you always have a bad attitude it’s not usually this bad. The only thing I can figure is that you have a personal reason for not liking her.�
�
Officer Bishop laughed. He genuinely liked his partner Tracy Stewart. She was blunt and didn’t beat around the bush. She was also a good officer. “Will you stop treating me like a case? Fine! I promise not to get upset over the fact that Dr. Cummings is probably leading us on a wild goose chase.”
“I don’t know. She seems to have a lot of strange things happening to her.”
Bishop sighed, “Let’s just focus on something else right now. We have tons of other cases to deal with besides Dr. Cummings’s.”
Officer Stewart looked at her partner with an inquisitive face. There was something personal about his dislike for Dr. Cummings and she was going to find out why.
“So we’re going to Best Buy…because why exactly?” Declan asked his sister Laci.
“Because I think someone sent me a virus and I want their Geek squad to look at it.”
Declan and Laci dropped the laptop off and Declan told Laci that he still wanted to look around the store. While Declan went to look for some headphones, she found herself in the camcorder section.
She saw herself on the big television screens as she stood in front of the camcorder that the store televisions were connected to. The more she thought of someone watching her, the more disturbed she became. What else had she done in front of her camera? She changed clothes, walked around in her underwear, burped, and probably a few other million things she wouldn’t want anyone else to see her doing.
“Is there anything I can help you find?” one of the workers asked.
“No thanks. I was just looking.”
Just then her phone began to ring. It was an anonymous number. Laci didn’t usually pick up anonymous numbers but today she did.
“Hello?”
She heard static on the other end...and heavy breathing.
“Hello, who is this?” she asked. When no one responded, she said, “If you don’t answer who you are, I’m going to hang up.”
“You covered my window…but I’ll still be watching.”
“Who the heck are you?”
“If you go to the cops again…I won’t just be watching anymore.”