Five in a Row

by Jan Coffey

  Gina pushed the pen and paper away from her. “So when are you coming back?”

  “Tomorrow. And I’d just as soon drive directly to Wickfield. Maybe I can still rescue our effort to hire Ms. Doyle. We could use her brains and expertise on this.”

  “You’re right. We could definitely use her,” Gina said. “I’ll tell Ben you’re coming.”

  Ten

  Acting had never so much as garnered a line on Emily’s résumé, but she thought she did a decent job of getting through the day without once raising Conor’s suspicions.

  She and her sister Liz had underplayed the previous night’s break-in at the Eatopia Café in front of the teenager. Emily was glad now that she had never mentioned anything to her son about the gifts she’d been receiving in the mail. She’d even talked to Ben about keeping the morning’s incident at the racetrack from Conor. Her son was a worrier, and Emily knew he was very protective of her. This kind of stress was something he didn’t need in his life.

  Besides, she rationalized, there had been no open threats. She didn’t know for certain that she was in any real danger. She kept repeating those words to herself over and over during the day. Ben was being very cooperative and seemed to agree with her thinking.

  At least, she’d thought he agreed…until they pulled into her driveway about ten o’clock that night and she saw Jeremy Simpson’s pickup truck parked there.

  Emily glanced apprehensively at the back seat, where Conor had been dozing off the past twenty minutes. Then she directed a questioning look at Ben. He’d made some excuses about having to make some business calls when they’d stopped for dinner.

  Ben looked the very picture of innocence “Hey, I invited him to stop by for a beer. I don’t know why he assumed I meant your house.” He quickly hopped out of the car and came around to open the door for her.

  “Oh, we’re home,” Conor said, stretching sleepily in the narrow back seat.

  “Yes, we are,” she said to her son. “Why don’t you go get ready for bed. I have a feeling that Detective Simpson and Mr. Colter want to use our kitchen to discuss some business.”

  “Cool.” He yawned and grabbed a bag filled with souvenirs before climbing out of the car behind Emily.

  Emily wasn’t fooled for a second, but she was relieved to see the Wickfield policeman engage only in small talk with Conor as they all went inside.

  “Make yourselves comfortable,” Emily told them. “There should be some beers in the fridge. No guarantee how old they are, though.”

  From the days of going out with Liz, Jeremy had been in her house before.

  “Help yourselves to whatever you want. I’m going to go up with Conor for a few minutes.”

  “Mom, I think I’m old enough to tuck myself in,” Conor whispered under his breath.

  “Who says I’m coming up for you?”

  The teenager was all smiles as he thanked Ben again for the day. As he headed up, Conor and Jeremy joked about the detective not finding him behind the wheel of any vehicle until he turned sixteen.

  Upstairs, Emily found herself checking each bedroom, looking inside each closet, peering under the beds, going to the bathroom and pulling back the shower curtains. Afterward, she walked around the hall like a zombie, trying to get her thoughts in order. Meanwhile, Conor—who was now wide-awake—weaseled his way into checking his e-mail before going to bed.

  She couldn’t ignore it. With the police detective here, this whole thing was getting elevated to a different level. And she knew she had to let it happen. She had to cooperate, break through her denial. The fear she’d experienced this morning at the racetrack when she saw the photograph was still lodged in her chest. There were no coincidences. She’d become a target. She was out of her league, and she needed help to get her life back to normal.

  “Jake wrote back,” Conor told her as she came into her office, where he sat in front of the computer.

  Emily tried to focus on the words dancing on the screen. She had three computers in the house, but none of them were located in the teenager’s bedroom. She had no problem with Conor using any of them, but she wanted to think she still could exercise some degree of control over which sites he was visiting or who he was chatting with. And she definitely didn’t want him using a computer to isolate himself from her.

  “Any news?” she asked.

  “His mom is the same. Which is not too good, I guess. His dad walked back and forth to the bathroom today, though.” The teenager answered two different instant messages that popped up on the screen before going back to Jake’s e-mail. “He’s thinking of coming back to school some time this week.”

  “That’s great. Tell him he’s welcome to hang out here after school with us if his grandparents are at the hospital in New Haven.”

  “I’ll tell him.” He started answering the e-mail. “I think you should go down, Mom. We do have guests.”

  She mussed his hair. “And you should go to bed and stop worrying about what I should be doing.”

  “But it’s still early.”

  “You had a full day.”

  “Half an hour.”

  “Fifteen minutes.”

  “Deal.”

  “Promise?” she asked, knowing full well that it would be a half hour before Conor would even think about walking away from the computer.

  “Go,” he told her, again busy with the pop-up messages.

  Emily poked her head into her bedroom next. She turned on the light and took a cursory glance at her reflection in the mirror. She looked pale, and there were dark circles under her eyes. She ran a brush once through her hair and her gaze locked on the mirror. In the reflection, she stared at the two oversized windows on the back wall. She didn’t use draperies, nor did she have any shades. Just a couple of valances. The windows overlooked the woods at the end of her backyard. Beyond that was a nature preserve.

  She quickly switched off the light, feeling suddenly vulnerable, exposed. What if someone was waiting in those woods? He could watch everything she did. Why hadn’t she decided on settling in an apartment in downtown Wickfield like Liz, instead of being so far out here in the middle of nowhere?

  Stop, she told herself. She was questioning her own judgment, and that was not a good thing.

  “No chatting with strangers, no porno sites and you’ve only got fourteen minutes left,” Emily told Conor as she walked into the office again. This time, she closed the wooden shutters overlooking the driveway and the road.

  Emily’s steps were dragging a little when she finally started downstairs. The kitchen door was partially closed, and the deep voices coming through were muffled.

  She found herself looking at doors and windows downstairs with a new sense of curiosity and concern. The house was over a hundred and fifty years old. None of the locks really worked. She’d never considered having any kind of security system installed and she’d even put off Conor’s idea of getting a dog this year. Suddenly, she felt almost helpless, and she hated the feeling.

  A couple of minutes later, she walked into the kitchen and both men stopped talking. Jeremy looked positively uncomfortable stuffed into the built-in breakfast nook. Ben dominated the rest of the kitchen simply by leaning against the countertop near the sink. The kitchen looked way too small with two men their size in it.

  “What’s the verdict?” she asked for lack of something better to say.

  “Guilty,” Jeremy answered in an “I’m not happy with you” tone. “I can’t believe that you didn’t call me about this freak. I have to hear about it from somebody who’s just passing through?”

  “There was nothing important to report. Not before today.”

  “Emily, my job in this town—”

  “Don’t get cranky with me,” she interrupted, laying a hand gently on his shoulder as she leaned over the table and looked steadily into his blue eyes. “I recognize now that I need help. So help me.”

  He stared back at her for another couple of seconds before a smirk broke acro
ss his face. “Let me just mark this down. There are not too many times when Ms. Emily Doyle will admit that she needs help with anything.”

  She gave his shoulder a push and straightened up, turning to Ben. He was quiet, watching too closely for her comfort. Something about the look on his face told her that he was thinking that there was something between her and Jeremy. Even as the thought occurred to her, she realized this bothered her. She felt the need to explain, reasoning that it was important that Ben, as a possible future employer, not misunderstand.

  “You took a lot on yourself asking Detective Simpson to come over here tonight.”

  “You think so?” Ben responded guardedly.

  “Yeah, I do. Thanks to you, I have a hell of a lot of explaining to do the next time I see his girlfriend in the village.”

  Emily turned to Jeremy. He kept a straight face. Actually, she didn’t have a clue who the detective’s latest girlfriend was. From what she’d picked up around town, though, she guessed his dating record matched Liz’s. Nothing more needed to be said to Ben, though. When she looked back at him, he was visibly more relaxed, and she went to stand beside him.

  “Can I get you something to drink?”

  “Why not? You two haven’t been poisoned by my ancient beer. Maybe I’ll try one, too. I can get it.”

  “No, I’ll get it,” Ben said, moving across the kitchen and opening the fridge. He even poured it into a glass for her while Emily filled the detective in on the gifts. She told him what had happened last night, although Jeremy seemed to know most of it already. She noticed he didn’t bother to take many notes on what she said. Ben had told him about the events of today, but he wanted to hear her version of it.

  “You need to be clear on this, Em,” Jeremy said when she finished and took a sip from the glass. “You have a stalker.”

  “Yeah…a faceless, nameless one,” she said in as casual a tone as she could muster. She hated to admit to anyone how insecure this ordeal had made her feel.

  “Historically, stalkers are usually males known to the victim. In most instances, they’re former lovers, boyfriends or spouses.”

  “Cross out all three in this case. I don’t know the guy.” She put her glass on the counter. As she did, her shoulder bumped against Ben’s, and she found comfort in that.

  “There are also stalkers who are complete strangers,” the detective continued. “We call them the ‘psychotic personality’ stalker. They become obsessed or they become preoccupied with one or more systematized delusions. Many of them, in fact, have a diagnosable mental disorder, like paranoia or schizophrenia. They can be manic-depressive or have a whole slew of other troubles. They’re known to contact their victim through gifts, letters, telephone calls, even through overt surveillance.”

  She hated the word “victim.” But that’s what she would become if Jeremy didn’t put a stop to it.

  “Can you give me every gift he’s sent? We’d especially like to have the boxes he used to ship the stuff to you, if you still have them.”

  She shook her head. “I only have the last box. I’ll drop everything I have off at the station tomorrow.”

  “Good. I’d also like one of our people to show up at your online class on Monday night. Just to sort of keep an eye on things, if you know what I mean.”

  “I’ll e-mail you the link.” The beer tasted terrible, but she needed to do something with her hands. As she picked up the glass, she realized she was shaking. She took a quick sip and put the glass back down.

  “This guy has her phone number,” Ben put in. “He knows where she lives. He had to be stalking her here at the house, too. That was the only way he could have followed us to Lime Rock this morning.”

  “I’ve already put in the call to have a cruiser swing by your house,” Jeremy said to Emily. “You know our limited budget. The force is pretty shorthanded in terms of on-duty officers. You’ll have to start taking some precautions yourself—like maybe moving in with your sister for a while.”

  She shook her head firmly. “I don’t want Conor to be affected by this. I’ll have a security system put in. I’ll get the dog I’ve been promising him.”

  Jeremy nodded thoughtfully. “Showing up at Lime Rock was a big step for this guy. He’s getting comfortable, showing his face. In some ways, this is good. Once we ID him, you can get a restraining order.”

  A death sentence. Emily had read too many news accounts of court orders proving to be absolutely useless. In fact, so many times, it seemed that they only managed to provoke the stalker, who would then become violent. Still, she knew it wasn’t worth going into any of this with Jeremy. He knew these things better than she did. He just didn’t want to scare her by telling her how limited her options were.

  “New anti-stalker laws give us a lot more power in arresting and prosecuting these people,” he said, as if reading her mind.

  She nodded and tried to look calm, but she was a mess inside. One thing kept running through her mind. Why me? She was no celebrity, no beauty queen, no public figure with any power. What did this man want from her?

  Jeremy and Ben got talking about some celebrity stalking case in the state. Emily left the kitchen and went to check the basement door. On her way, she looked at the chain latch on the front door. It was supposed to serve as a backup to the antiquated lock. Neither of them would keep anyone out if they put a shoulder to the door. Still, she felt better doing whatever she could.

  She was double-checking the locks on the living room windows when the two men came out of the kitchen. Jeremy was ready to go.

  “I’ll talk Tom into parking on your street for a couple of hours tonight,” he told her. “You know him.”

  She nodded. He was one of the uniformed officers who’d showed up at the café last night when they reported the break-in. She walked the detective to the door. “Thanks.”

  “Will you be okay?”

  She nodded again. Ben’s cell phone rang, and she saw him disappear into the kitchen.

  “It’s about time you got yourself one of those,” Jeremy said, motioning with his head toward the kitchen.

  “A cell phone?” she asked, knowing perfectly well what he was referring to.

  “A boyfriend. A man who obviously likes your son and isn’t intimidated by your megagigabyte brain.”

  “Megagigabyte brain?” She landed a punch on his arm and opened the front door to push him out. “Well, Ben Colter is not my boyfriend.”

  “Whatever you say, Em.” Jeremy gave her a devilish wink.

  She stood in the open doorway and watched the detective get into his pickup truck and back out of the driveway. Jeremy’s last words echoed in her head. She’d never thought of herself in those terms. Gigabyte brain. Intimidating. That sure explained her pitiful social life.

  “You’re not kicking me out yet, are you?”

  Emily turned and watched Ben tucking the phone back in his pocket. She liked the way he filled and warmed every space he walked into.

  “It appears that I’m in the middle of a whole lot of trouble. I think you should run.”

  “No chance.” He moved into the open doorway and looked outside.

  The lights on either side of the front door reached ten or fifteen feet into the darkness. A breeze was beginning to blow and the temperature had already dropped off considerably. Fallen leaves were dancing across the lawn. Emily wondered where along the street the police officer would park his cruiser. More importantly, she wondered when he’d get here.

  A car drove slowly by on the road. She shivered at the thought that the driver could be looking at her house right now. He could be the same man from the racetrack. Stalking her. Waiting for her to be alone. Waiting for his chance…

  She had to stop. She wasn’t going to let him drive her crazy.

  “It’s cooling off.” Ben led her away from the door and closed it. “Thanks for not getting angry with me for calling Simpson.”

  She rubbed her arms, tried to control the panic. “After what h
appened today, I would have done it myself.”

  “That’s what I figured. I was trying to save you time.”

  Emily led him through the living room. A small coffee table in front of a brick fireplace was surrounded by a loveseat and two old wingback chairs. A large armoire housed the television and stereo equipment and bookcases covered the rest of the walls. Another small room, she thought, deciding they’d be better off not sitting in here. It was entirely too cozy.

  “Can I get you something to drink or eat?” she asked, going into the kitchen. “A cup of coffee?”

  She was not entirely certain how to go about entertaining someone like him. Despite her doubts, though, she was glad Ben wasn’t ready to leave. Emily needed a little time to regain her footing, even it if was in her own house.

  “I can do without the caffeine tonight.”

  “So can I,” she agreed. “Some juice, then?”

  Ben shook his head. He leaned against the counter and picked up a piece of paper. “I wrote down the names of a couple of security alarm companies Simpson recommended. He mentioned the first one is the company that services most of the businesses downtown.”

  “I’ll call them on Monday.” She looked inside the fridge, unable to make up her mind. Thanks to Conor, there were so many choices.

  She nearly jumped out of her skin when something banged loudly against the kitchen window.

  Ben crossed the room quickly. A second bang followed, but softer this time.

  “It’s one of the old storm shutters,” Emily said in an unsteady voice. Her heart was drumming painfully in her chest. “Sometimes the latches come loose.”