THERE WAS NO HIDING her reaction to the sight of the name. Sherrod McKinley. The man she had cheated on her husband with. The man who had apparently done something terrible enough to make her file a restraining order against him. The detectives watched her expectantly.
“It doesn’t say what he did. How can I find that information?”
Williams snatched the paper from her line of sight. “First things first: how do you know this person?”
Gianna shook her head, her confusion overwhelming her. “He teaches at the same school as me.”
“And what was the nature of your relationship?” Williams asked.
It was pointless. It didn’t matter how many different ways they asked her. She was never going to tell them the truth on that point.
“We were—are coworkers.”
“That’s odd. Why would you need to file a restraining order against a coworker?” Debreaux asked. Her voice and attitude were beginning to grate on Gianna’s nerves.
“Well that’s what I’m asking,” she said to Debreaux. “Did they not document the issue when I filed it?”
“Let’s take a look-see, shall we?” Williams turned to the next page and read aloud. “On or about June 9, the victim alleges that the perpetrator followed her home from work and parked across the street from her house. The perpetrator then snuck around the back side of the home and jumped the fence, at which time he knocked on her windows and yelled her name repeatedly. The following day, the perpetrator slashed the victim’s tires in the parking lot of the school at which they both worked. On or about June 11, the perpetrator cornered the victim in the lounge at their place of employment and put his hands around the victim’s throat.”
Williams put the paper back on the desk and looked at Gianna. “Sound familiar?”
It didn’t. But it was a legal document and her signature as on it. “I swear to you, I do not remember this.
“Okay. If you had to guess, why do you think a coworker would do such things?” he asked.
“I’m wondering the same thing. I don’t understand this.” She didn’t even have to pretend to be dumbfounded. It was a genuine reaction.
Williams sat back in his chair and shook his head. “Are you telling us everything, Mrs. Harris? Because I can’t help you or solve this case without your complete honesty and cooperation.”
She put on her best wounded face. “Of course I am. Everything I can remember. I want you to catch the person too.”
Williams looked at Debreaux, then back to Gianna. He wasn’t happy. “Well Mrs. Harris, I know you’ve been through a lot so we can end this here. But please be advised, we will be speaking with you again. Soon.”
Gianna was ready to go. “I told you, anything I can do to help, I will.”
“Good. And don’t worry. We’re gonna talk to Mr. McKinley very soon.”
GIANNA WAS RATTLED. And there was no reason for Williams to tell her they planned to talk to Sherrod unless he wanted her to get rattled. This was it, this was them playing dirty. She wasn’t sure of her next move. She needed her grandmother.
Emmy came over around four o’clock and found her grand-daughter sitting in a heap on the living room floor. “What’s wrong, Sweetpea?” she asked.
They moved to the couch and Gianna filled her in on everything. By the time she finished talking, she was relieved. But there was still judgment to be meted out. With Emmy, there was always judgment. She looked at her grandmother and waited for it, but Emmy often zagged when she was expected to zig. There was no judgment. Only smug satisfaction.
“This might sound harsh,” she said, “but I’m not at all surprised you cheated.”
“Why would you say that?”
“You got married too young.”
“Twenty-three isn’t young. And what does one have to do with the other?”
“Everything.”
“Twenty-three is a lot older than seventeen,” Gianna snapped.
“Oh, please. It was different back then. I didn’t have a choice. You did. And I warned you.” It was true, she had.
Emmy had lots of experience with marriage—four husbands and a fiancé’s worth—so Gianna had always looked to her for wisdom. Post-high-school, she took great care to only date childless young men from good families as Emmy instructed. Emmy said they didn’t have to be rich—that’s what second husbands were for—but they did have to be respectable. Beyond that, though, Emmy had been adamant about sowing oats. As discretely as possible, of course.
Gianna shook her head.
“Don’t shake your head at me. You know I’m right. You were young and inexperienced. Of course you wanted to try something new. Marriage is hard enough and then you add the pressure of knowing you’ll never sleep with anyone else unless one of y’all files for divorce or dies and it’s no wonder. And I tried to tell you. Didn’t I? I told you to wait and date around some more but you didn’t listen to me.”
“I was in love.”
“Mm-hm. I told you about that too.”
Gianna shook her head again, tears forming in her eyes. “Justin was a good man, though. I had a good man and I cheated on him. I’m a bad person. That won’t change no matter how many times you say I-told-you-so.”
“I see, so you want to feel bad. You’ve never been one to feel guilty about things but okay, I’ll let you wallow in it.”
The women sat in silence. Kaya’s footsteps upstairs in the bonus room were the only sound. Gianna regretted allowing Kaya to take over that space; it was right above the living room and every footfall was audible.
Emmy frowned. “Do you remember anything about the last few months before the incident?”
Gianna sighed loudly. If she never heard that question again it would be too soon. “I don’t know, Emmy. I have thoughts and visions and I don’t know if they’re memories or my imagination.”
“What do you see, in your mind, about you and Justin?”
“Nothing specific, just flashes of things. Why?”
Emmy shrugged. “I just wonder if you aren’t...romanticizing him. Who he was, as a husband.”
“Why would you say that? You loved Justin.”
“I did. I still thought you could do better, though.” That surprised Gianna. Emmy was your typical old-school woman, the type that always takes the husband’s side. Gianna remembered a particularly loud and contentious argument she and Justin had. She hadn’t wanted to sleep in the same bed and she didn’t want to sleep on the couch so she told him to go sleep on the couch. Justin refused because Justin wasn’t a sitcom husband. You weren’t putting Justin out of his own bed. If you wanted to sleep apart from Justin, then it was on you to make other arrangements. Gianna ended up calling Emmy that night.
“Can I stay with you tonight?” she’d asked.
“Why?”
“Me and Justin got into it and I don’t wanna be around him right now.”
“Did he cheat on you?”
“No.”
“Did he put his hands on you?”
“No.”
“Are you scared of him?”
“No.”
“Then no, you cannot stay with me. Goodnight.” Click.
It was a hard but necessary lesson for Gianna to learn. Emmy strongly believed in leaving and cleaving, and she wasn’t interested in being a safety net for a grown ass woman who was having a temper tantrum.
Gianna looked at her grandmother and sighed. She was getting tired. “Justin was a good man. You said so yourself.”
“He was, but I’m not gonna let you sit here and beat yourself up when your husband wasn’t a saint.”
Gianna paused, her water bottle suspended just below her mouth. “What does that mean?”
Emmy paused and seemed to be thinking about her answer. Before she could speak, Kaya came ambling into the room.
“I finished my homework” she announced.
“Good,” Gianna answered, giving the girl a weary smile.
Kaya quickly moved over to Emmy to hu
g her. “Hi, Emmy. I didn’t know you were here.”
“Hey, sweetie. How was school?”
“It was okay. Can we have pizza tonight?” Kaya asked Gianna.
“That’s fine with me. Emmy, are you staying?”
“I don’t know. I think I wanna sleep in my own bed tonight.”
“Please, Emmy?” Kaya begged as she wrapped her arms around the old woman. “We can have a girls’ night.”
Emmy smiled and mock-pinched Kaya’s cheek. “That’s not fair. You know I can’t say no to you.”
“Go on up and practice,” Gianna said, “and then we’ll order the pizza and find a movie to watch.”
“Okay,” she yelled, her voice trailing off as she ran upstairs with her clarinet. Emmy handed Gianna an envelope. “I wanted to give you this. I know you won’t be back at work for a while.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Gianna said as she took the envelope from Emmy.
“I wanted to. So how’s she doing?” she asked, gesturing toward upstairs.
Gianna shrugged. “Up and down.” The sounds of a screechy clarinet filled the air and Gianna cringed.
Emmy didn’t seem to mind it. “You know, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world for her to talk to somebody. Grief counseling, maybe.”
“Maybe.”
“You should mention it to your doctor next time. Maybe she can recommend somebody.”
“Yeah,” Gianna said, her mind elsewhere. There was something she was going to say to Emmy before Kaya came in but for the life of her, she couldn’t seem to remember what it was.
TREMAINE CALLED AROUND 6:30.
“You want me to pick some food up on the way to your house?” he asked.
“Yeah...about that...I think me and Kaya will be okay on our own tonight.”
Silence. “Oh. Is something wrong?”
“No, nothing’s wrong. My grandmother’s here and we’re gonna do a girls’ night. But please know we have enjoyed having you here last night. It’s not about you at all.”
More silence. “I understand,” he said. “You don’t even have to explain, I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t something I did.”
“No, nothing like that. I’ve appreciated having you here, believe me.”
“Okay, well goodnight I guess.”
“...You okay?” Gianna asked. He sounded strange in that special way men do when they’re upset but don’t want to start an argument because then they’ll have to listen to you talk.
“Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Enjoy your night.”
The line went dead before she could say goodbye.
Emmy tapped out right after dinner and retired to the guest room. Gianna and Kaya spent the rest of the evening pigging out on cookies and cream ice cream—Kaya’s favorite—and popcorn. Scary movies were out of the question so they watched The Devil Wears Prada instead.
Afterward, they planned Kaya’s wardrobe for her future career of CEO of some multimillion dollar corporation. Gianna always teased Kaya for her “old lady taste.” Most girls her age were thinking about ripped jeans and midriff shirts but Kaya liked pencil skirts and blazers and loved to flip through the St. John catalogs that came to her personal email account. It was odd, but amusing.
She put Kaya to bed in her own room but not even thirty minutes passed before she knocked on Gianna’s bedroom door saying she couldn’t sleep. They both fell asleep to the sounds of the A Different World marathon.
Gianna slept okay despite Kaya’s cold feet all over her back. She spent the next morning catching up on her lesson plans, a hot cup of green tea acting as a poor replacement for her daily Starbucks latte. The sooner she got back to work, the better off she’d be. The days had become so long to sit through, and idle hands begat sadness and fear. Fear of whoever it was that tried to kill her and fear of the police, who seemed to be gunning for her.
It had come to her just before she drifted off to sleep. She needed to talk to Sherrod as soon as possible because whenever the affair came out, it would be ugly. If she could get to him before the police did, maybe they could come up with a story, a reason, or something that would explain everything. Yes, she needed to talk to Sherrod.
“I’m going to check the mail,” Kaya announced, but Gianna didn’t respond. She was too deep in her thoughts.
“Ugh, it’s not here yet!” Kaya said a few moments later, her bottom lip poking out.
“What’s not here?”
“My Instyle magazine. It usually comes around this time. But something came for you,” she said, handing her mother a small stack. Gianna flipped through absentmindedly, turning her nose up at the bills. And then she came to the small white envelope, about the size of an index card.
She was still getting condolence cards but it was the wrong size for that. Her curiosity piqued, she tore into the envelope and pulled out a folded sheet of notebook paper. Written on the sheet, in black marker and all capital letters, were three little words:
I’M WATCHING YOU.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
GIANNA AND TREMAINE sat in the waiting area. Detective Williams was in an interrogation, the receptionist said, but they were welcome to hang around. Tremaine grabbed some chips for Gianna from the vending machine but she only got a third of the way through the bag before she became nauseated.
She closed her eyes and tried a deep breathing exercise. Dr. Ferris had taught her to do them when she felt anxious. She breathed in for eight seconds, held it for five seconds, and then exhaled for ten. It seemed to be working but she kept bouncing her right knee up and down. She didn’t realize it until Tremaine placed his hand there. She opened her eyes and whispered. “Sorry.” He moved his hand from her knee to her back, and his light touch calmed her down.
Finally, Williams made his way out and waved the two of them inside his office.
“What’s this about?” he asked Gianna, not even giving her time to sit down.
“This.” She held up both the note and envelope. “Somebody put it in my mailbox yesterday.”
Williams gestured for her to set them down on his desk. He then used a pen to slide the note over to him. He stared at it as if it might come alive. “I take it you didn’t see who did it.”
“No. My daughter found it when she checked the mail and I’ve been freaked out ever since. What if it’s...him?”
Williams didn’t answer, instead turning his attention to Tremaine. “Who are you?”
“Tremaine Odum. A friend of the family.”
Williams sized him up. “Good to meet you. Now, Mrs. Harris, do you have any idea who might have done this?”
“Maybe the person who tried to kill me,” she answered sarcastically.
Williams glanced at Tremaine before speaking. “Isn’t it equally possible that your stalker did this?”
Tremaine raised his eyebrows at Gianna. “Stalker? Somebody’s stalking you?”
She rolled her eyes. For some reason, she had expected discretion. “Not anymore. I don’t think. I’ll tell you later.”
“Listen,” Williams said, “there isn’t much I can do with this other than suggest you get a camera for your front yard. They’re about $100 and easy to set up if you’re handy. Are you handy, son?” he asked Tremaine.
“Yeah,” Tremaine answered, outwardly bristling at Williams sonning him. The ultimate disrespect. His face got tight and Gianna could feel the anger radiating from him.
Williams smiled, undaunted by Tremaine’s reaction. “See? There you go. Dimples over here will help you. If Mr. McKinley shows up and acts like the mailman, he’ll be in violation and we can arrest him.”
“But what if it’s not him?”
“Then we’ll see someone else on the camera.”
Gianna sighed. He wasn’t being as helpful as he should have been given her victim status. Did he treat other widows like this? “Can you get fingerprints or something?”
“I could. The problem is this: while it’s a federal crime to leave something that doesn’t have
postage in a mailbox, we don’t usually pursue that type of thing because we’re overworked already. If you knew who it was then that would save us time but we’re not gonna do an investigation. We don’t have the resources. This ain’t Mayberry.”
Gianna’s eyes welled up. She was clearly on her own. But once the first tear fell, she could see Williams soften a little. “Listen, I’m sure this must be scary for you and I wish I could help but this just isn’t enough to go on. Set up your camera, get an alarm system if you don’t already have one, and we’ll go from there. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL me you had a stalker?” Tremaine asked. They were halfway back to her house, having already procured the surveillance equipment, and Gianna didn’t really feel like talking. She was still scared and anxious and couldn’t seem to find her footing. She laid her head against the window and closed her eyes.
“It was a while ago,” she answered quietly. “Earlier this year.”
“Who was it?”
Gianna bit her fingernails, a nervous and destructive habit. The last time she was anywhere near this stressed—eleven years ago when she was writing her thesis—she had taken to getting acrylic nails installed just to keep from wearing her own nails down to nubs. Maybe it was time to go back to that. “A guy I work with,” she answered.
Tremaine frowned. “Why would—“
“That letter didn’t have any postage on it so whoever it was obviously came to my house. They came to my house, Tremaine.” She covered her face with trembling hands, not wanting him to see her cry. Then she remembered Emmy’s advice. Never hide your tears.
She let her hands fall to her lap and faced Tremaine with tears streaming down her cheeks. “What if he’s still after me?”
Tremaine pulled into a gas station parking lot. He shook his head, worry all over his face. “I’m here now. I’ll stay with you as long as you and Kaya want me to. I can’t have y’all sitting around scared all the time.”
“You really don’t have to.”
“I know that. I want to. And listen, y’all can even stay at my place if you would feel safer there.”
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