Secret Stalker

by LENA DIAZ,

  He cocked his head, studying her. “What about you? Did your dreams come true?”

  The only dream she’d ever had was to spend her life with him. She stepped away from him and stood looking out the back wall of glass at the water, beaten into small whitecaps by the wind.

  The sound of clinking glass had her glancing over her shoulder. Max stood at one end of the room, pouring drinks at a bar built out of what appeared to be old barn wood, stained honey gold like the rest of the cabin.

  He joined her by the windows and handed her a glass. “Something relaxing, like old times. Still like bourbon and Coke?”

  She smiled and took it from him. “Still do. Even though I wasn’t even legal drinking age back when we shared a few of these.”

  He leaned against the wood frame, facing her. “There were a lot of things we did that we shouldn’t have back then. Our parents would have been furious if they knew.”

  She almost choked on her drink, coughed, then gave him a watery smile. “Don’t you know it. My mama would have killed me if she realized half the nights I was supposed to be staying with a friend I was sneaking out to be with you.”

  His brows raised. “You really think your mom didn’t suspect what was going on? I practically lived at your house, we spent so much time together. You don’t think she figured out you were sneaking out to be with me the rest of the time?”

  She shrugged. “She was a smart lady. I suppose she might have known and turned a blind eye. She loved you like the son she never had. You won her over just like you won...” She stopped and shook her head.

  “Just like I won you over?” he said.

  She nodded, seeing no point in denying it. How could she? She’d loved him since she was twelve or thirteen.

  He sipped his drink, his gaze never leaving her face. He took both their drinks and set them aside on the brick hearth of the fireplace not far from the doors. Then, very slowly, he leaned down, giving her every chance to turn away, and he kissed her.

  She closed her eyes, melting against him, her arms, as if of their own will, sliding up his chest to wrap around the back of his neck. He cupped her head, his other hand caressing her back, his thumb tracing little circles against her skin through the thin fabric of her blouse.

  The kiss wasn’t rushed or frantic as many of their kisses had been when they were teens. This kiss was more of an exploration, more of a question, hesitant but confident, if there was such a thing. It was as if he wanted her to give him the green light or tell him to stop. There was heat, but it was carefully banked. A fire ready to burn, but ruthlessly held back. All it did was frustrate her and leave her wanting more.

  She broke the kiss and shoved out of his arms. She gave a nervous laugh and retrieved her glass from the hearth.

  “Will you have to confess to one of your interns that you kissed me? I’d hate to get in the middle of a happy couple.”

  She downed the rest of the drink in one swallow, then had to swipe at her eyes when the burn had them watering.

  “I wouldn’t have kissed you if I was still dating someone else.” His tone was clipped, his eyes cold.

  She regretted her words as soon as she’d said them. Apparently Marcia’s earlier gibe about Max and interns had struck deeper than Bex had realized. Not that it should matter. Max wasn’t hers, could never be hers again. She needed to remember that.

  She moved into the kitchen, separated from the living area by a black granite–topped island. After washing her glass out in the sink, she set it on the drain rack to dry.

  “You didn’t need to do that,” he said, his voice quiet but the deep timbre carrying easily through the massive space.

  She shrugged and crossed to one of the couches. Worried that he might sit beside her, she chose one of the recliners instead, kicking off her leather loafers and pulling her legs up. “You didn’t need to bring me out here to talk, either. I could have done my talking at the station. All you did was delay the inevitable.”

  He set his glass down on the coffee table and sat on the end of the couch closest to her. “What’s inevitable?”

  She rubbed her hands up and down her arms, even though she wasn’t cold. “The inevitable is that you’ll just have to take me back to the station again.”

  “Why? So you can confess to something you didn’t do, just because you think you’re protecting me?”

  She shook her head. “No, Max. I would confess to something that I did do, in order to protect you. I’m guilty. I killed Bobby Caldwell.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “I don’t believe you,” Max said.

  Bex stared at him. He was calmly sitting on the couch, proclaiming his belief in her innocence.

  “I thought you’d be shocked, or angry, or...something, when I finally confessed. I didn’t expect you to refuse to believe the truth.”

  “Oh, I believe that you believe you killed him. That’s something I suspected all along. It explains why you wouldn’t see me when the chief threw you in jail. It explains why you left town the first chance you could. And it also explains why you stayed away so long. But do I think you could actually murder someone? Not a chance in hell.”

  Her fingers curled against the arm of the chair. “So, what, I hallucinated the whole thing? Some cop you are. The guilty party confesses and you ignore the confession.”

  He let out a deep sigh. “Bex, something awful happened to you after you left me that night. I think Bobby was probably stalking you again, maybe he lured you somewhere, or forced you to his cabin. He tried to rape you, maybe he did rape you—”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  His jaw tightened and he nodded, a look of relief flashing across his features. “But he attacked you. And you fought back. If he died as a result of that, it was self-defense. Not murder.”

  Unable to sit still, she jumped to her feet and began pacing across the room. “It’s not that simple.” She rubbed her hands up and down her arms. “Yes, Bobby tricked me into going to his cabin that night. Yes, he attacked me, and I fought back. I may not have meant to kill him, but I did.” She stopped pacing. “Self-defense?” She laughed bitterly. “Of course it was. But who would have believed me?”

  “I would. I do. I would have helped you, if you’d given me a chance.”

  “All that would have done was destroy your dream to become a police officer. Thornton wouldn’t have overlooked that you were siding with me. Trust me—he believes I’m a murderer, and he believed it back then, too.”

  “That’s because you wouldn’t talk. You refused to say anything in your defense.”

  “I couldn’t. You know how things were. Bobby had been stalking me and making my life hell. But he was too clever to do it in front of others where I’d have proof. He manipulated everyone into thinking I was the crazy one making up stories about him. His father would have painted me out to have been the one to lure him to that cabin. And he would have said that I did that in order to kill him for making me look like a fool. He was rich enough, and blind enough when it came to Bobby, to make everyone believe him. I’d have gone to prison for the rest of my life. That’s why I couldn’t tell anyone. My only hope to avoid prison was to keep my mouth shut and hope that there wasn’t enough evidence to prosecute me.”

  “Then why confess now?”

  “You know why. Someone—probably Bobby’s father—is trying to bring up the past, make me face what happened. If I don’t—”

  “They’ll kill me? Good grief, Bex. I’m a police officer. I know how to take care of myself. I don’t want you to be a sacrificial lamb on my behalf, especially when you’re innocent.”

  She crossed her arms. “Am I innocent if I was glad he died? Because I am. That sounds terrible. And I’ve felt guilty for years over not feeling guilty about that, if that even makes sense. I know I shouldn’t be r
elieved that someone lost their life. But Bobby was sick, evil. And I know that he would have killed me eventually if he hadn’t died that night.”

  He stood and stepped in front of her to stop her pacing. Then he put his hands on her shoulders, making her face him.

  “You have nothing to feel guilty about. Looking back, with my years of experience behind me, I’ve no doubt that you’re right. He would have killed you eventually, or tried to. But I would have protected you, Bex. If you’d only let me.”

  She blinked away the moisture that was suddenly in her eyes. “I told you it’s not that simple. It never was.”

  He tilted her chin up. “Because you wanted to protect me. Don’t you realize it’s my job to protect you, not the other way around?”

  She shook her head. Because he was wrong. Bobby’s friends had beaten up Max more than once in that terrible year when Bobby was harassing her. It was only a matter of time before something terrible happened to Max. And it was her fault, for somehow drawing the attention of someone like Bobby. She couldn’t let Max pay the price for her failures.

  “Bex,” he said, his deep voice soft, but with a thread of steel underlying it that hadn’t been there when they’d been teenagers. “There’s absolutely nothing to gain at this point in bringing any of this up now. Leaving town like you did back then was like running away. It only made you look guilty in the eyes of most. And it makes claiming self-defense this many years later extremely hard to prove. Which is why you have to be quiet. No confessions.”

  She shook her head. “We both know I can’t just go back to Knoxville and pretend none of this happened. As soon as I came to Destiny, I started something. And whether it’s Mr. Caldwell, or someone else behind what’s happening now, they aren’t just going to stop.”

  “All right. Then there’s only one thing we can do. We have to investigate Bobby Caldwell’s death on our own and get the evidence we need to prove you’re innocent. Then, and only then, we’ll go to the chief and present our case.” He dropped his hands from her shoulders. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

  He left before she could argue again and headed through an opening at the far right side of the room, near the kitchen. His boots echoed on the hardwood floor. A few moments later he returned with what appeared to be the same thick manila folder he’d brought to her house last night. He also had a legal pad and pen.

  He plopped the pad and pen on the end table beside him and put the folder on the coffee table. Sitting on the edge of the couch, he flipped the folder open and sorted through the various papers and pictures. He finally found whatever he was looking for, a page with a graph of dates and times with bulleted sentences next to each time. He tapped the page.

  “I’ve got the official timeline surrounding Bobby’s death right here, the record of what he did the entire day until a specific time, and then later when his body was discovered by Deacon and his father.”

  A chill passed through her at the thought of the father and son finding Bobby’s body. That had to be a nightmare they’d never gotten past. And from the hate and bitterness she’d seen in the senior Caldwell at the lawyer’s office, he’d definitely never moved past his son’s death.

  “I’ve read everything in this file dozens of times over the years. So I’ll know if your story jibes with what we know or not.”

  She blinked again, surprised. “Why did you read it dozens of times?”

  “The woman I loved ran away. What do you think?”

  She shrank back from the bitterness in his tone. “I’m sorry, Max. I truly am.”

  “Meaning if you could do it over again, you wouldn’t have told me no when I asked you to marry me that night?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Exactly. Then you aren’t truly sorry, are you?”

  She winced. “If we’re going to fight, maybe you should just take me back to the station and let me get my confession over with.”

  He closed his eyes briefly, then shook his head. “No fighting. I’m...sorry, Bex. Seeing you again after all these years has been a huge shock. Apparently I’m not taking it very well.”

  She swallowed hard and nodded. “Me either. I never know what to say around you without making you upset. That’s why I didn’t go to your mom and dad’s when I got in town. I would have loved to say hi to your family. But I didn’t want to risk upsetting you after the way I left things between us.”

  He stared at her incredulously. “You wanted to see my family, but, what, you were trying to run in and out of town purposely not trying to see me?”

  “I’m doing it again. Everything I say comes out wrong. Can you please just drive me to town, Max? Neither of us is doing each other any favors here.”

  “Sit down, Bex.”

  The bite in his tone had her sitting before she even thought about it. Then she got so mad at herself for following his directions that she jumped up and started past him toward the front door.

  He stood and grabbed her arm, stopping her. “Bex—”

  “No.” She shook her hand, but his fingers remained around her wrist, like an iron band. Tears burned at the backs of her eyes and her breath started coming in gasps. “Stop it, Max. You don’t have the right to tell me what to do or keep me from leaving if I want to leave. Don’t you get it? That’s what he did. He’d corner me in some alcove at school, or surprise me in my own backyard when Mama wasn’t home. And he’d scare me, use his superior strength to try to make me do what he wanted. He’d grab my arm, just like you’re doing now.”

  His eyes widened and he immediately let her go. The blood drained from his face as she rubbed her wrist.

  “Bex, my God, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t thinking about...about what you went through.” He held his hands up and took a step back. “I won’t physically try to stop you from leaving. But please, please think about what you’re doing. I want to help you.” His eyes took on a tortured look. “I couldn’t protect you back then, even though I tried. But I’m a grown man now. And I know what I’m doing. Let me protect you now. Let me keep you safe.”

  His phone buzzed. He frowned and checked the screen, then flipped a button on the side to silence it.

  “Bex? What’s it going to be? Will you let me help you?”

  She couldn’t bear to see the hurt in his eyes, hear the hurt in his voice, knowing she was the cause. No matter what she did, she always seemed to hurt him. Ever since he’d asked her to marry him and she’d turned him down. Her entire life had turned upside down after that. And now she was turning his upside down, too. What would have happened if she’d said yes?

  No, she couldn’t go down that road. She couldn’t have said yes back then. No matter how much she loved him, she’d known that if she said yes, she was signing his death warrant. Because that was one of Bobby’s many taunts to her—that if he couldn’t have her, no one would. And she believed him. He would have killed Max if she’d agreed to marry him. And that was something she couldn’t bear.

  True to his word, Max wasn’t trying to stop her by using his physical strength against her. Because he wasn’t Bobby. Max was a good man, always had been. And it was wrong of her to ever compare the two.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have said that, about Bobby, and you...it was cruel. And a lie. Because I know you would never hurt me. You’re nothing like him, Max. You never were, and never will be. You’re the most decent man I’ve ever known.”

  He gave her a tight smile. “I don’t know about that. But I do know I want to help you. Will you let me, Bex?”

  She slowly nodded. “If I can. What do you want me to do?”

  “I need you to tell me exactly what you did the day Bobby Caldwell died, from the moment you woke up until the cops knocked on your door around one in the morning.” He grabbed the legal pad and pen and sat down on the couch, waiting.

&nbs
p; “But...you know most of it. We were together until around nine thirty that night.” She didn’t meet his gaze. She couldn’t. Because that was when he’d asked her to marry him. And she’d turned him down.

  “All of it,” he repeated, not missing a beat. “From your perspective, from the moment you woke up.”

  She let out a deep sigh and sat beside him, pulling her legs up on the couch to get more comfortable. At least, sitting here beside him, she didn’t have to look into his eyes while she recounted the more intimate details.

  “Mom woke me up, as she often did. I’ve never been much of an early riser. But it was my birthday, and a Saturday, and she knew I didn’t want to miss a single minute. We had a lot of plans.”

  “We who?”

  “We, Mom and me. And then...you and me.” She cleared her throat. “We were supposed to meet later.”

  He hesitated for just a moment, then said, “Go on.”

  She described the day of shopping with her mom, going to a nail salon to get matching manicures and splurging on pedicures, too, at the last minute. Her mom was a retired schoolteacher, having had Bex late in life as a surprise baby. So she had a lot of free time, but not a lot of money. But she’d promised Bex an eighteenth birthday to remember and had saved all year for it. Nothing was too good for her Bexey.

  She plucked at the fabric of her pants. “I’d forgotten that nickname until now.”

  He put his arm around her, pulling her close. “I’m so sorry about your mom.”

  She blinked back the moisture in her eyes. “Thank you. I’m glad you were there for her. She...spoke about you a lot. She loved you very much.”

  He squeezed her shoulders. “Do you need to take a break?”

  “No.” She wiped her eyes. “I want to get this over with.” It took a minute to get her bearings. Then she began telling him about the rest of her day with her mom. Buying matching purses at one of the little stores in town that had handcrafted items Bex always thought were way better than anything she’d ever seen in any fashion magazines. Lunch at her favorite restaurant, a seafood chain the next town over.