He exhaled a deep breath and nodded toward Cheyenne’s room. “Miss Cassidy has had quite a scare tonight. I just want to make sure that she’s safe.” He handed the young man his card. “If you have any problems, give me a call.”
The guard took the card, studied it for a moment and then, with it grasped between two fingers, he lifted his hand to his forehead in salute. “Gotcha, Captain.”
“Deputy Conrad will do,” he said. “Now I’m going back in to tell Miss Cassidy good-night, and I’ll see you when I leave.”
“I’ll be right here,” the guard said with a smile.
Luke walked back into the room and stopped beside Cheyenne’s bed. “The guard is outside, so I’m going on home. If you need anything, call the nurse or let him know. I’ll come back in the morning to check on you and take you home.”
“You don’t have to do that. I’ll get Dean or Gwen to come get me.”
Luke shook his head. “They’re busy in the mornings with their ranch guests. Since I’m off, I don’t mind coming.”
She seemed to debate whether or not she wanted him to come, but after a moment she nodded. “Okay. I’ll see you then.”
He nodded and walked back toward the door. When his hand touched the knob to open it, he glanced back over his shoulder at her. She had sat up in bed and was staring at him, a slight smile on her face. In that moment it struck him that she had no family left. She was alone in the world.
At the thought a need to protect her poured through him, and he smiled. “Sweet dreams, Cheyenne. Don’t worry about anything.”
She just nodded as she continued to stare at him, and he turned back to the door. When he stepped into the hall, the guard was sitting in a chair outside her room. He looked up from a magazine he was leafing through and grinned. “Good night, Deputy Conrad.”
Luke bit down on his lip, gave a curt nod and headed to the elevator. When the doors opened, he stepped inside. Just as he was about to push the button that would send him to the lower floor, he glanced back to where the guard had been sitting a minute ago. The chair was empty, and he could see him once again leaning on the nurses’ desk talking to someone.
As the doors closed, he gave a deep sigh and shook his head. He’d told Cheyenne not to worry about anything, but he couldn’t convince himself to do the same. He didn’t feel comfortable at all leaving her here.
SIX
As soon as Luke walked out the door, Cheyenne closed her eyes and laid her head back on her pillow. A tear trickled out of her eye and ran down her cheek. She’d cried earlier but she didn’t know how she’d been able to hold it together today without breaking down, but she had.
The discovery that her stalker was alive and back in her life had been enough to bring back all the horrible memories of the last few years, but tonight it had gotten even worse. He had tried to kill her.
She’d lived with the knowledge that he would do that sooner or later, but after Clint Shelton’s body had been found with a suicide note she’d dared to believe her ordeal was over. It hadn’t turned out to be that simple.
She bit down on her lip to keep from crying out loud. She didn’t want to alert the nurses that she was upset and have one of them to come scurrying in here. There’d been too many people fussing over her today. She didn’t think she could bear one more, and she knew she didn’t deserve another.
The thoughts running through her head had her keyed up, and she couldn’t lie still. With a groan she threw back the covers and climbed out of bed. Without the warm blanket she’d been lying underneath, the room felt cold. The cotton hospital gown they’d put on her in the emergency room didn’t offer much protection from the temperature in the room. She crossed her arms over her chest and wished for the warm, fleece robe that was hanging in her closet back at the ranch. If she didn’t get to go home tomorrow, maybe Gwen would bring it and some of her personal items to the hospital.
Suddenly she remembered that Luke had brought her coat, and it was hanging in the closet. She grabbed it off the hanger and put it on—it was a long suede Western duster her parents had given her the Christmas before their deaths. For a moment she stood still, rubbing her hand over the soft material and the fringe that hung from the sleeves. She always felt close to her mother and father when she put on this coat, and tonight was no exception.
Without warning an excruciating pain seized her chest, and she doubled over. This had happened before, and she knew right away it wasn’t caused by her accident. It was the festering guilt she carried inside that wanted to push its way to the top, and it was always a fight not to let it succeed.
Tonight she wasn’t going to win that battle, and she gave in to the memories that began to flow through her mind. It seemed like only yesterday, but she knew it had been three years since she’d first met Jesse, or at least that’s what he’d told her his name was.
She hadn’t known what a nightmare her life would turn into when she first logged on to that online chat room, or she would have turned off her computer right away. It had been a lonely time in her life. So she’d taken the advice of a girl she’d met at the Calgary Stampede and joined a chat-room website.
That’s when she met the man who called himself Jesse. It didn’t take long for him to single her out from the group. He was looking for companionship, too, and right away they became friends. They shared the same interests and moral beliefs, and they had a great time joking and talking. Before she knew it, she began to think of him as her best friend, one she could tell anything to, and he seemed to feel the same way.
They’d discussed meeting, but it never seemed to work out. Their schedules conflicted, or he had to go out of the country on a business trip, or one of his family members needed him to help them with something. He always had an excuse, and after a while she’d grown tired of that. She didn’t want a relationship in cyberspace. She wanted one with a live person, and it didn’t seem like that was going to happen.
So after a year Cheyenne was ready to move on. She’d met a young man who worked for the local veterinarian, and they had begun dating. Things were suddenly brighter in her life, and she knew she had to end her online relationship with Jesse.
When she told him, he didn’t react the way she expected. His emails became filled with anger, and his rants about how she’d been unfaithful to him scared her. As the weeks went by, they grew more threatening, and she became even more frightened.
When his emails became threatening, she realized she was dealing with a psychopath. She had immediately quit answering his messages, but that hadn’t deterred him, however.
She knew she’d been foolish to tell him where she lived when the white roses began to arrive. Then the threats had escalated to a physical presence. Everywhere she went, the feeling that he was always watching kept her on tenterhooks. After her room was ransacked, she’d known she was really in trouble. Then had come the phone call with the demand for her to meet him at the next rodeo, but she’d stayed home. Because of that, her parents had died, and it was all her fault.
The worst part of this whole sordid mess was her parents’ murder. If only she’d told someone how it had all started, the police might have been able to catch him and they would still be alive. Instead she’d chosen to remain silent because she was embarrassed by how naive she’d been in her online relationship with Jesse.
That decision had led to her parents being killed, and she didn’t think she would ever be able to forgive herself. It was a secret she would take to her grave.
Her chest tightened at the thought that even after all that had happened today, she still hadn’t told Luke the whole truth. What would he think of her when he found out?
Cheyenne wiped away the tears that were rolling down her cheeks and buttoned the duster over her gown. She needed to get out of this room for a few minutes. Maybe a walk in the hall would calm her down. She rememb
ered Luke saying there was a vending machine at the end of the hall. She grabbed some money from her wallet, which he’d left on the nightstand, opened the door and stepped outside.
A man dressed in a security guard’s uniform stood at the nurses’ station across from her room with his back to her. He was engaged in conversation with the nurse sitting at the desk, and they were so engrossed in what they were saying that neither one of them noticed her.
She didn’t feel like answering any questions as to why she was out of bed, so she didn’t speak and just turned in the direction Luke had said the vending room was located. At the end of the hall, she turned right, and there it was. She could see the lights of the soft-drink machine, but the room was dark otherwise. Something the staff probably did, she thought, because patients wouldn’t normally be out of their rooms at this time of night.
As she stepped in, she noticed a door to the side. In the dim light from the machine she could barely make out the sign on it that identified it as a restroom. She stopped in front of the soft-drink dispenser and stared at the choices available. When she’d made a decision, she pushed her money through the coin slot and punched the button for her drink.
It rolled out and gave a thunk as it came to a stop. She bent over to pick it up but hesitated when the squeak of the bathroom door opening caught her attention. She straightened and started to turn around, but before she could, a hand clamped over her mouth. The breath was almost squeezed from her body as a strong arm circled her chest, pinning her arms to her sides.
Her body slammed back against the hard frame of a man, and her heart dropped to the pit of her stomach. She wanted to scream, but the hand over her mouth muffled her cries. She felt a warm breath fan the side of her face, and a voice whispered in her ear.
“Hello, Sunshine. It’s Jesse.”
* * *
Luke sat in his truck and stared at the entrance to the emergency room. For some reason he couldn’t make himself turn the key in the ignition, so he sat there alone with his thoughts as he recalled everything that had happened today.
Sometimes it helped him understand a case better when he could be alone and go over all the facts again in his mind. He’d certainly been right when he had told himself Cheyenne’s story was going to be different from any other he’d ever heard. The only other stalker case he remembered working on was a few years ago.
That one had involved a high school girl whose ex-boyfriend wouldn’t leave her alone. Her parents had become worried because he seemed to follow her everywhere and had filed a complaint. All it had taken in that case was a talk with the boy’s parents, and they had gotten counseling for their son right away. The stalking had stopped, and now both students were off at college in different parts of the country. According to their parents, both of them were doing well.
Cheyenne’s case wasn’t going to be that easy to deal with, though. She had no idea who her stalker was, and he’d escalated his violence considerably in the time he’d been harassing her. Luke had listened carefully as she’d told her story, but he had the feeling that there was something she wasn’t telling him. Call it gut reaction, but whatever it was had proven beneficial in the past.
Then there was the troubling thought about Virgil’s cut hand. Had he really injured it opening a hay bale, or had his knife slipped when he was cutting Cheyenne’s drag strap?
He reached for the ignition but let his fingers hover over it.
He couldn’t get past his doubts about the security guard. He seemed more interested in flirting with a pretty nurse than he did guarding a patient who’d been almost killed. Perhaps he needed to go back and check on him just to see if he was attending to his duty or not.
Before he could change his mind, Luke got out of the truck and headed back inside. He was being ridiculous, but he’d learned long ago not to dismiss those doubts when they took hold in his mind. It wouldn’t take but a few minutes to make sure the guard was on task, and if he wasn’t, Luke was going to read him the riot act whether it strained relations between the sheriff’s office and the hospital or not.
He strode through the doors to the emergency room and was so intent on his mission that he was at the elevator before he realized he hadn’t acknowledged the receptionist he’d just hurried past. He’d have to apologize when he came back down.
The doors to the elevator opened and he stepped inside. He hesitated for a moment and considered leaving, and then that feeling hit him again. With a quick jab his finger punched the button for the second floor and the elevator doors closed.
* * *
Cheyenne struggled with her attacker and tried to twist free of his grip, but he was too strong. He gave a soft chuckle and pulled her tighter. “You’re not getting away from me this time,” he whispered.
He pushed her face first against the vending machine, then pulled his arm around her chest. Cheyenne took a quick breath at the relief, but that turned quickly to fear when she realized he’d only released her long enough to pull a knife from his pocket. It was now pressed against the side of her neck, and her breath froze in her throat.
“I have you now, Sunshine,” he said. “We’re going to leave here. Don’t make a sound as we go down the stairs, or I’ll kill you where you stand. Do you hear me?”
She gave a slight nod.
“Good girl,” he said.
Cheyenne knew he intended to kill her. It didn’t matter if he did it here or somewhere else. She had nothing to lose. So although she was trembling with fear, she had to do something.
With the knife still at her throat, he relaxed his fingers on her mouth, and she knew this was her only opportunity. In a moment she would either be free or lying on the floor bleeding to death. She made her decision and sank her teeth in one of his fingers with all her strength.
Crying out in pain, he stumbled backward. When she felt the pressure of the knife ease on her neck, she screamed as loud as she could and pushed away from him. Still screaming at the top of her voice, she ran toward the bathroom in hopes of locking herself inside. She’d just reached the door when his hand clamped around her wrist and he spun her around.
For the first time she saw his face. She’d known when he moved his head to whisper in her ear that he had some kind of mask on, and now she cringed at the sight. He wore a black ski mask, and his wild stare blazed with fury through the eye slits.
“You’ll pay for that,” he growled as he raised the knife to attack.
“No,” she begged as she cowered against the bathroom door.
Suddenly she heard someone run into the room and come to a stop. “Hold it right there!” a loud voice demanded.
She turned to look, and she saw the security guard standing a few feet away with his gun drawn. “Drop the knife and step away from her,” he ordered.
Jesse’s hands released her, and he did as the guard said. He bent his knees and lowered the knife toward the floor. Then suddenly he charged toward the guard, and Cheyenne watched in horror as he sank the knife into the young man’s stomach.
* * *
A scream pierced the quiet of the hospital as Luke stepped off the elevator. The sound sent a jolt of fear through him, and he reached for his gun before he realized he was off duty. His gun was lying on the closet shelf back at his house.
The scream came again, and he bolted down the hall. Two nurses stood beside their station staring down the hall. In a glance he took in the empty chair outside Cheyenne’s room and burst through the door. She was nowhere in sight.
The nurses looked around as he ran back into the hall. “What’s going on?” he demanded. “Where is Cheyenne?”
The frightened looks on their faces told him that something bad had just happened. One of them pointed toward the end of the hallway. “We heard a scream. Mike, the security guard, has gone to check it out.”
Luke was running in the
direction they pointed before she had the words out of her mouth. He rounded the corner and stopped at the entrance to the vending room. In the dim light he could see a dark figure holding a frightened Cheyenne, a knife at her throat. On the floor the security guard lay in a pool of blood.
“Back off, Deputy,” the hooded figure holding Cheyenne ordered. “I’ll kill her if you take another step.”
Luke swallowed and let his gaze travel over Cheyenne. She was terrified, and anger rushed through him. He started toward them, but the man stuck the knife closer to her, and Luke stopped. “Okay. Just take it easy. There’s no need to panic. Let her go and we can end all this right now. We don’t want someone else to get killed.”
“It’s never going to end for me,” he growled. “After what she did to me, she doesn’t deserve to live.”
“You don’t mean that,” Luke said as he inched closer.
The man tightened his arm around Cheyenne. “Step away. We’re leaving now. If you try to stop us, I’ll kill her.”
Luke debated his options. He didn’t have a weapon, and the guy had a knife at Cheyenne’s throat. He’d killed once, and he didn’t sound as if he’d hesitate to do it again. He wasn’t going to disarm him here without getting one of them killed, so he did the only thing he could think of at the time.
He stepped away from the door.
“Just don’t hurt her,” he said.
The man chuckled and pulled Cheyenne toward the exit. “I thought you’d see it my way.”
Cheyenne cast him a desperate look as she was dragged from the room. The moment they were out of sight, Luke grabbed the gun the security guard had dropped on the floor and ran into the hall. The nurses still stood at the other end. “There’s a man hurt in here. Help him and call 911. Tell them an officer needs backup in the parking lot behind the hospital.”
Stalking Season Page 7