Stalk Me

by Richard Parker

  In her taskbar she noticed she’d received some mail and maximised her Outlook Express. There was some junk and a message from a “nightvisitor” via her “smilingassassin” YouTube channel. She wasn’t familiar with the name.

  Cool footage, LOL. I have a recording from same night. Interested in it for your channel?

  The clip referred to was the one she’d captured on the exchange trip – the car crash girl who had started beating up on the crowd. It had earned Kelcie her highest hit rate: 7,133,462 and counting. She’d made quite a few bucks from advertising on that page. It had certainly reinforced her belief she could benefit financially from what she shot with her phone. When she’d agreed to chaperone the exchange students for the French trip, she’d thought there’d be rich pickings in terms of drunken indiscretions. Especially from her fellow escort, Ramiro Casales, who had mistakenly thought he was going to be knee-deep in horny sophomores before he started his medical training. But she hadn’t expected hitting pay dirt at the crash site they’d encountered on the drive back from Le Mans.

  Maybe she could make even more cash by posting a new clip. Must have been one of the students. She thought she’d seen all the recordings from that night uploaded. Maybe a sixth person had used their camera. Perhaps whoever it was had captured something interesting enough to make it differ from the others.

  She sent a response to nightvisitor:

  R U on FB?

  Kelcie couldn’t have known her reply appeared on an iPad less than thirty feet from her. It was inside the charcoal Toyota Corolla parked up behind the dumpster at the rear of her property.

  *

  Mimic looked up from the screen to Kelcie’s illuminated lounge window, wiped at the sediment at the corners of his mouth and pocketed the handkerchief. He’d been watching her all day and was now using her WiFi. Hacking her passwords had been easy, but it wasn’t just the removal of the clips that was paramount. He had to ensure that backup material was never uploaded again.

  He’d confirmed she was more than happy to make money out of someone else’s misfortune. Not on the scale he did, but she certainly had her head screwed on. Trip Stillman was just a stupid kid that had uploaded something he shouldn’t. Kelcie Brooks had smarts.

  With all of his targets now within a small area, his options were limited in terms of plausibly replicating historic homicides. It was his last contract, and the notion of dispensing with procedure was very tempting, particularly given his desire to take in the vista of the Flathead Valley from Lone Pine State Park.

  Kelcie’s rented Four Mile Drive cabin was remote and surrounded by scrubland. He could easily get out of the car now and put a bullet through her skull. Nobody would hear. But Mimic had a dependable system and was too long in the tooth to start changing his ways, particularly when he was in no hurry and had accessible options at his fingers.

  He grazed his nail over the iPad screen and found the news story that had piqued his interest. It had happened just over a year ago and twenty-two miles away from Kalispell.

  ELDERLY WOMAN MUTILATED IN BIGFORK

  Police have revealed that the body of eighty-four-year-old widow Virginia Greenspan, discovered at her Bigfork home in the early hours of last Sunday morning, had been extensively mutilated. The weapon used was a broken ketchup bottle found at the scene. The perpetrator forced entry and, after attacking Mrs Greenspan, had attempted to set a fire in the apartment.

  The Flathead County Sheriff’s Department would like to interview a teenager seen in the immediate area wearing a Billings Bulls sweatshirt from their ongoing investigation.

  Mimic did some further research and discovered they hadn’t.

  Chapter 17

  “The female member of the response team that day was Rae Salomon.”

  Beth asked Nathalie to spell it and wrote it down. “Would there be any way of getting a message to her?”

  “According to our records, she no longer works for the emergency services.”

  “Oh. You don’t have a contact number?”

  “I couldn’t give out those details.”

  “I really do just want to send her a gift as a thank you. Have you got an address there?”

  There was a pause. “I’m sorry.” She genuinely sounded it. “If it were my decision I would, but I really can’t.”

  “Is there anywhere else I could try?

  “I really can’t help you any further. I’m glad you’ve made a full recovery, Madame.”

  “OK, thanks for your help.” She was about to replace the receiver.

  “Wait, if she’s actively looking for work, you may well be able to contact her through an employment website. It’s an unusual name.”

  “Thank you, I’ll try that.”

  Now she’d identified the paramedic, Beth hoped Nathalie was right. Perhaps she could locate her somewhere on the Internet and local recruitment profiles were a good starting place.

  She wondered why Rae had left the service, and considered her motives for pursuing her. Had Luc really said anything comprehensible to her? In the fourth clip, Beth could clearly see him uttering words into her ear while she listened intently. But the phone camera was about twenty yards away, so it was impossible to read the shapes on his lips before the recording ended.

  Perhaps he’d been asking where Beth was. Maybe he’d been delirious, or even if Luc had said anything coherent, chances were Rae wouldn’t remember anyway.

  If Beth hadn’t been attacking the crowd, perhaps the words would have been whispered in her ear. Were they an explanation for the apology he seemed compelled to impart as he lay dying? Beth suspected she was hoping for an explanation she’d never receive.

  She didn’t want to watch the entire clip again, so she dragged the slider to those last crucial seconds, but this time she was looking at the contemplative reaction on Rae’s face. She was convinced he’d said something significant to her. Only the arrival of her colleague broke her out of it.

  Rae Salomon was the last person Luc had spoken to and the one woman Beth had to find.

  Chapter 18

  Beth used self check-in and coasted Jody’s tungsten Golf Mk7 to the allocation lanes. She’d stayed on the inside lane for the whole journey there, so it had been a long crawl. Driving made her feel jittery, and negotiating the busy traffic through the wipers and pelting rain to Folkestone had been exhausting.

  It was the first time she’d been back behind the wheel of a car since the collision, and the tendons in her neck were rigid. But with the memory of the accident itself still deeply buried, turning the key in the ignition hadn’t been quite as traumatic as she’d thought. She’d also had a legitimate destination, and that at least had given her a vague sense of motivation she’d not felt since waking.

  She was going to attempt contact with a girl named Maryse Plourde. She lived in a small farming village called Neuf-Marché built on the banks of the river Epte in the Pays de Bray.

  The village was about twenty miles from the Forêt Domaniale de Lyons. Whether she found the girl or not, Beth knew she wouldn’t be able to return home without visiting the place where her old life had halted so violently.

  She had to take it in, walk around the site. Perhaps not seeing the roadside through lenses of rage would alter her perception of it or jolt something loose. Maybe Beth would find the part of herself she felt had been lost there. But would standing in the backdrop of an accident long cleared of its debris do anything but amplify her acute sense of being left behind?

  She’d told Jody she was visiting Luc’s mother in Quincampoix for the day, but had no intention of going there. She couldn’t even contemplate the idea of being in the same room as the urn. Jody had happily offered up his car keys. He’d been shut in his little recording studio, and she was glad to give him some space for a while.

  Beth had been on the Eurotunnel to Calais less than three months earlier, and she thought about the different woman she’d been such a short time ago. Happily married and juggling what she thoug
ht were Herculean pressures. Now she wished for the stresses of work and moving home with Luc, instead of them being as written off as the car they’d driven onto the shuttle.

  She’d thought little of the vehicle that had been transported from the crash site in the forest and scrapped soon after. The silver Nissan Pathfinder had been virtually brand new, and Beth had mocked Luc’s reverence and insistence on keeping the front mats pristine.

  She manoeuvred up the ramp, and as the sound of the rain on the windscreen abruptly stopped, she felt claustrophobia crawling over her. Beth had never suffered from the condition in her life, but a host of new anxieties had taken up residence as soon as she’d opened her eyes in hospital.

  Jody’s vanilla-scented ice-cream cone air freshener was suddenly cloying. She wanted to put the car in reverse, but there was another vehicle tight behind her. Beth had no choice but to slot into her space and sit the journey out. She was directed by an attendant to a bay and turned off her engine as soon as she was in position.

  She hadn’t found a trace of Rae Salomon via employment sites, but had located her dead Twitter account. Even minus the dreadlocks, the black-and-white photo of her as a child was unmistakable, but there were no details in her profile and she hadn’t logged in for over two years. Beth found one follower – Maryse Plourde. She was significantly more loquacious than Rae and had over four hundred followers of her own. In Maryse’s tweets, there were many references to the demands of the customers in her place of work. She was a popular waitress in a brasserie called l’Auberge du pont.

  Beth had considered contacting her via the account, but the idea of escaping the UK to locate her had been too tempting. No member of Blood Legend had bothered to contact her, but she supposed it was because they were still reeling from the murder of Trip Stillman.

  Neuf-Marché was a small place. Even if Beth didn’t encounter her at the restaurant, she felt sure she’d be able to find her with a few enquiries. She wondered if Rae Salomon lived in the immediate vicinity. Beth guessed she had to be nearby if she was part of the response team for the crash in the forest.

  Even if she found her, Beth was preparing for inevitable disappointment. How many similar scenes had she attended? And would she remember anything that had been said to her by Luc, when she dealt with the dead and the dying on a daily basis?

  But why was she no longer working for the emergency services? Perhaps she’d relocated. Maybe this whole trip would prove fruitless after all.

  A female attendant in a day-glo jacket gestured to her, half smiling. Beth realised she’d left her wipers going.

  As Beth’s car wound its way through the tall hedges that bordered the familiar patchwork fields, it felt as if she were an interloper in a location for happy memories she could no longer lay claim to. With Luc gone, every moment they’d shared there seemed null and void. The pewter skies heightened the sensation, and as she swerved to avoid an oncoming tractor and pulled over to let it pass, the ruddy-faced driver glowered at her.

  This was a silly mistake and she realised she was only there because she didn’t have anywhere to run. No home and nowhere to find comfort in familiarity. Being here, in the last place she’d been the person she thought she’d be forever, seemed like her only recourse, but it was a destructive pilgrimage. If she ever wanted her life to find its balance again, she knew she had to focus on the road ahead and not the one behind her.

  But if she didn’t try to find Rae, she would always wonder what had been uttered to her as she’d gripped Luc’s hands. A large part of her hoped the paramedic would have nothing to offer. If Rae just shrugged her shoulders and told her she had no recollection of Luc or anything he’d said, then she’d know for sure she’d reached a dead end. Her real fear, however, was being told something more significant.

  Chapter 19

  Beth saw the ivy-clad restaurant before she realised she was in Neuf-Marché. She’d been so distracted, she must have missed the sign, if there’d been one. A glance at the satnav confirmed she’d arrived.

  She pulled the Golf into a quiet residential street and switched off the engine. She’d lost track of time and glanced at her watch. It was quarter past twelve in the afternoon. Sliding her leather shoulder bag up her arm, Beth got out of the car and took in her drizzly surroundings. It was chilly and she walked to the high street, pulling her tan Bella jacket tighter. The short heels of her matching suede boots crunched on the narrow gravelled pavement, and the mist of her breath hung about her face.

  Her eyes settled on the steeple of the St Pierre Church. Beth had glanced at it as she and Luc had driven through the village in the past, but they’d never stopped there. She didn’t want to walk straight into the restaurant. If Maryse greeted her, she hadn’t decided how she would proceed.

  Would she pretend she was already a friend of Rae’s and ask where she could contact her? She preferred to be honest, even if she had to tell her exactly why she wanted to speak to her.

  Intending to do a brief circuit of the village while she deliberated over her best approach, she headed towards the steeple, walking to the end of the side street to cross the road to where a few people were standing outside a delicatessen. She had to pause at the kerb to allow a lorry to trundle past, however, and in that moment Beth turned right and strode to the entrance of Auberge du pont before she could change her mind.

  Inside, the smell of coffee and pastries draped itself over her. Two overweight men in overalls were stacking crates of beer at the side of the wooden bar. Due to the large mirrors on the walls, the restaurant looked much bigger than it did from the outside, and tables stretched back to another bar at the rear. A few diners were dotted about. The lighting was subdued and a selection of musical instruments hung down from hooks in the ceiling. A muted clarinet played through a speaker somewhere.

  An attractive, dark-haired and petite girl in a linen blouse and black skirt appeared from behind the two men and smiled warmly at Beth through heavy make-up. “Puis-je vous aider, madame?”

  “Maryse Plourde?”

  The girl’s beam remained, but her eyes warily searched first Beth’s shaved head and then the scars on her chin. “Oui. Un moment.”

  Beth had expected Maryse not to be there and to have to spend the day drinking endless cups of coffee until she arrived for her shift. She watched the waitress disappear through a door behind the bar. The two men stacking crates turned in unison and smiled perfunctorily at her before returning to their work.

  Maryse emerged from behind the bar. She was much taller and athletically built than Beth had expected from her profile picture. Her crimped hair was tied up and now dyed straw blonde, but her features were unmistakable. She’d borrowed the first waitress’s cagey smile. “Bonjour,” she said uncertainly.

  “Bonjour. Parlez-vous anglais?”

  Maryse nodded quickly. “A little.”

  “I’m trying to find somebody. I realise your time is valuable but all I need is a contact number or address...”

  Maryse’s eyes glazed and she shook her head. “Slowly.” She smiled again and gestured towards a nearby table.

  Beth took a deep breath and followed her. As Maryse seated herself, Beth considered the best way of cutting to the chase. She remained standing and took her iPhone out of her shoulder bag. She’d been avoiding the devices since seeing the clips, but Jody had set a new one up for her and persuaded her to bring it. She recognised the irony of using it now.

  Maryse looked guardedly at the device while Beth found the YouTube clip. She dragged the slider to just before the helicopter taking off and paused it on the image of Rae with Luc. Planting it in front of Maryse she pointed at the paramedic. “Rae Salomon?”

  Maryse glanced up at her and her features immediately hardened. “You are police?”

  “No.” She pointed to Luc. “My husband. Mon mari.”

  Maryse returned her attention to the paused clip again and Beth touched play. She didn’t take her eyes from the iPhone, even when it had ended. />
  “Maybe you’ve seen this before?”

  Maryse nodded.

  “Can you understand why I must speak with your friend?”

  Maryse looked up at Beth. “Such terrible... tragedy.”

  “Yes. My husband didn’t survive.” It still felt strange hearing herself say it. “Do you know where I can find Rae?”

  “No.” Maryse closed her eyes momentarily, as if she’d find the words better in the dark. She opened them again. “Tragedy after this...to Rae...” She shook her head for effect.

  “Rae’s... dead?”

  Maryse nodded.

  Chapter 20

  When Kelcie arrived home from teacher training college, she pushed the door and heard her breath snag in her throat. She surveyed the remains of the room. It looked less as if she’d been robbed and more like somebody had deliberately smashed every one of her possessions. Somebody? Looking at the destruction, it appeared as if an entire football team had stampeded through her cabin.

  At her feet lay the contents of her underwear drawer and a selection of jars and tubes from the refrigerator. Mayonnaise and dark sticky syrup she couldn’t identify had been used to daub all her panties. A tub of cookie ice cream was upended beside them. There was a footprint in a mound of crushed cereal that looked as if it had been left by a rubber sport sole.

  All of the cheap rental property picture frames had been swiped from their hooks, their fragmented glass scattered about the rugs. The walls had been smeared and Kelcie guessed what had been used to do it. The aroma reached her then, but there were other alien scents mixed with it – cigarettes and male sweat.

  She listened for signs of movement, but heard only the familiar sound of faraway traffic, louder than usual. She stepped over the ornaments that had been mashed into the carpet and peered through the buckled and split passage door to the bedroom and bathroom beyond.