I Am The Lion: A Riveting Psychological Thriller

by Rachelle Lauro

  I stopped doodling and looked out of the window. Winter had come early with a sudden overnight dumping of snow that melted almost as suddenly as it arrived. I was watching tree limbs shiver in the breeze, when Ben's words echoed in my mind. I think you should follow your heart.

  "Follow my heart," I repeated absentmindedly and sighed.

  I was opening up my latest Falco scene, hoping for divine inspiration, when my phone rang.

  "Hello?"

  "Hi, is this . . ."—I heard papers rustling—"Virginia Ward?"

  "No, this is Eugenia, her sister. Who's this?"

  "This is Cody Merrick from Quantum Security. We manage your home security system."

  "Yes, can I help you with something?"

  He pulled in a deep breath. "Yeah . . . actually . . . look, I was wondering if maybe we could meet in person. I have some information that you might find interesting."

  In person? I thought, palms beginning to moisten. Personal meetings were my arch nemesis. And the timing couldn't have been worse. Normally, I would have passed such matters off on Virginia, but she was out of town on a publicity tour.

  I glanced over at my monthly calendar that was conspicuously blank. "Can we talk over the phone?" I asked. "I'm pretty busy."

  "The matter is sensitive, Miss Ward," he said. "It would be best to meet in person. Would tomorrow sometime work for you?"

  I always took a writing break around lunchtime, so reluctantly, I agreed to slot him in at noon.

  The following day, the intercom rang at the exact time specified. I pushed the talk button and the little gray screen lit up, showing the face of a man peering into the camera. He looked young, I thought, and somewhat boyish. Not the typical security type. Maybe he’s the computer guy.

  When he knocked, I opened the door without my usual hesitations. I dared to hope I was getting better. Maybe Ben’s love was having a transformative effect on me. Maybe I was becoming normal. I showed Cody into the living room; we sat down on the couch.

  "Thanks for agreeing to meet with me," Cody said. "Sorry for the inconvenience."

  "It's okay," I said, eyeing his satchel. "Can you tell what this is about?"

  "Sure. Let me just cut to the chase. Did you receive anything in the mail about our new enhanced security measures?"

  "I don't know. My sister handles the account."

  "All right. As you know, we take your security very seriously. So we're in the process of integrating a facial recognition software program that looks at everyone on your camera stream and simultaneously runs a police background check on them."

  "Sounds proactive. Slightly Orwellian, but proactive."

  He laughed a little uncomfortably. "Yeah, I guess that's what enhanced security calls for these days."

  "Guess so," I said, wondering why this required a personal visit.

  "So as a member of our platinum program, your account was one of the first we implemented with the new upgrade." He reached down and pulled a tablet out of his satchel.

  "Yes, we had a little problem a while ago," I said.

  That was an understatement. The frightening stalker saga ultimately resulted in our current installment of no-breach perimeter walls and the high-tech home security monitoring system.

  "Mmhm. Part of the implementation process is what we call 'cleaning'," Cody continued. "We scrub all the existing footage and run background checks on everyone who shows up. Just to make sure the household is safe moving forward." He unlocked his tablet and opened an app. "And to make sure that you aren't unwittingly harboring a fugitive."

  "As you do," I said, leaning forward, pleased that Quantum was taking our security so seriously.

  "Miss Ward, we found something that we thought you should know about."

  Suddenly, I wasn't so pleased. A video started playing. I instantly recognized the camera angle overlooking our back lion enclosure. It was in gray relief and uninteresting to the casual observer.

  The lion paced back and forth. Just another ordinary day at the Ward's domicile.

  Embarrassed by his condition, I was about to explain my newly implemented feeding plan, when Dillon walked into view from the direction of my office and stood next to the cage, hands shoved into his front pockets. My breath caught. Had he been opening my manuscript files?

  Cody froze the footage and double-tapped on his pixelated face. A red circle triangulated on Dillon’s face, zoomed in, and brought it into fine focus.

  "Do you know this person?"

  "That's my sister's boyfriend, Dillon.”

  Silence.

  "What is it?" I asked, skin beginning to crawl with suspicion. "What's wrong?"

  He tapped again on the face, and a police mug shot opened to the right of the frozen video stream. It was Dillon all right, clutching a numbered placard, standing against a height strip. Somehow, I wasn't surprised.

  In the mugshot, his hair was dark brown and hung in his eyes like a dirty curtain. I recognized the sullen blue eyes and the small crescents of his nostrils.

  "Great. What did he do? Rob an old lady?"

  Cody looked at me, surprised. "He was arrested for stalking in the third degree."

  My arm hair stood on end.

  "Your sister dropped the charges."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  I felt sick. Sickened. Totally unwell.

  Virginia was the one who had actually seen the stalker. I'd only seen his creepy silhouette. As a first hand witness, she'd gone to all the court trials. Hadn't she?

  The stalker ordeal started with a deluge of online messages that I dismissed as exuberant fan ravings. So I blocked the guy. Then he’d hunted down my private email.

  "I suppose I should say sorry for reaching out thusly but I don’t say sorry unless I’ve done something interminably wrong and being a fan, being your biggest, most devoted fan isn’t wrong. It’s glorious. It’s angelic. Can’t you hear the heavens opening up and singing about my supine divine devotion to you?"

  Followed a few days later with, "I made this tiddily widdily little video for you to show you how innate our relationship can be, how friendly, how helpful I can be, if you just let me in. If you just let me show how sweet and supportive I can be. Because that’s all I want to be. I want to be there for you. To show you the way. To help you reach your fullest potential. Because I’m committed to you, but you have to ask yourself . . . ask . . . how much do you commit yourself?"

  There was a blue hyperlink. I couldn’t help it. It was the car crash. I was the rubbernecker. And before I could stop myself, down went my index finger on the mouse.

  Click!

  It was a remake of No Doubt’s It’s My Life video. There was a bubble-headed vixen (adorned with a man’s head) poisoning his first lover, running the second over with a roadster, and fatally electrocuting a third—all three sporting Virginia’s head, the face of Amy Mathews—and finally finding himself in jail, struggling against some burly wardens on death row. The allusion wasn’t lost on me. This person had killed Amy three times over.

  Virginia had gone to the police, but they’d said there wasn’t anything they could do about video remakes. But they gave her a tip sheet anyway, all printed up and ready to go.

  "He can send all the video he wants," she’d told me later that evening. "He doesn’t know where we live."

  Suddenly I was grateful that we’d been sparse on details when it came to writing Amy’s bio. We’d said she lived in New England, but didn’t say where exactly. Thank God.

  The East Coast was home to fourteen million four hundred forty-four thousand and eight hundred sixty people—I looked it up. Even if the stalker wanted to graduate from the digital medium and get real, he’d have to investigate six states, sixty-seven counties, one hundred and fifty cities, and over three hundred towns, and fourteen million abodes. That ought to keep him busy. Very busy indeed, otherwise known as impossible. That had made me feel better.

  He might be a video whiz, but he certainly wasn’t a one man walking censu
s bureau.

  Well, he found us somehow. About three weeks later, I’d found the first mangled rose, resting against next to the front door. We endured the best we could, upgrading the locks in our old rental, changing out the mini blinds, while we got ‘love bombed’ by a complete psycho.

  Then his rose blitz reign of terror finally came to an end. I'd arrived home one evening to find a police car parked in the front drive. Two cops sat with Virginia in the front room, taking notes and asking questions. She’d found the stalker in her bedroom, leafing through her underwear drawer.

  Cody asked if I was all right after he delivered the terrible news, but I could hardly think. "Yes," I mumbled, stunned, and showed him to the door. Somehow, he was gone, and I stood alone in the house, wondering if Dillon was hiding in a closet, and if so, which one?

  I went through the house and systematically locked every door and window. Then I went up to my bedroom and called Virginia seven consecutive times, but each call went to her voicemail. I sent some urgent text messages—I need to talk to you—and nervously paced my bedroom, glancing outside, looking for the stalker who probably had every code to our house, thinking I should have texted—What the fuck is wrong with you?!

  But I needed facts from Virginia, not a defensive linebacker. How much access did Dillon have to the house? Had Virginia given him any keys? And most importantly, how much does Dillon know about our carefully constructed Amy Mathews? That was a clean, lucrative shot into the sordid world of blackmail.

  But clearly Virginia hadn't considered that when she accepted a date with our stalker. Was this some sort of twisted Stalker Stockholm Syndrome? Was that even a thing? I sat down on the edge of my bed, grabbed my phone and googled "dating my stalker." I needed to the bottom of Virginia’s mind warp.

  A litany of headlines filled my screen: "I fell in love with my stalker and couldn't be happier", "I’m falling for my stalker", "I recently entered a relationship with my stalker", "How I fell in love with my stalker," by lovebug457, who felt the need to pen an instruction manual about it.

  There were more disturbing offerings: "My super-hot stalker", "Stalkers are great in bed", and "Meet my stalker" (in case anyone was interested). There were videos of women gushing about their usual start to a relationship, but what a relationship it was! There were message board of women soliciting advice from the dregs of the internet: "Should I date my stalker?" There were even smut books whose storyline was based on the hot sex between stalker and stalkee.

  I was appalled. I read every article with gruesome fascination, trying to find out if any of these women had been strangled in their sleep, but the majority of them claimed—justified, rather—that the stalker's behavior on some sort of shy courting ritual.

  Suddenly, I was glad for Ben. Glad that he'd at least worked up the courage to ask me out on a date like a man, instead of stealthily breaking into my home and depositing love notes between my brassieres.

  I called him immediately and almost cried with relief when he picked up.

  "Ben," I said, trying to sound brave, voice breaking anyway. "I need you to come over. Right now. Can you come over now?"

  “Genie? What's wrong?" he asked, turning down the cab radio.

  "Just come over."

  "I'm working right now. Can it wait?"

  "No. Where are you? I'll come to you," I said, fighting the urge to throw down the phone and run down the road to him.

  "I'm on the other side of town. Look, I've got two more deliveries, then I'll clock out and swing by, okay?"

  "Ok," I said, "but hurry."

  "What's going on?" he asked, concerned. "Can you tell me now?"

  I glanced around my empty bedroom and down the long hallway. Being alone in the house had previously given me a sense of security. But now, I felt a tingling sense of dread knowing that Dillon could be anywhere, making himself at home like he usually did, plotting something sinister. Was he here now? Listening?

  "No, I'd rather talk to you in person."

  "Okay, babe. Sit tight. I'll be there in about an hour."

  I checked my closet for Dillon, then I went to my bedroom door and locked it. Once done, I stooped and examined the lock, trying to determine if Dillon could pick it. I'd seen movies whereby the dangerous criminal only had to stick a bobby pin into the hole, rattle it around, and waltz into the room where the victim stood petrified in fear.

  Then I called Quantum Security, waited for the automated message to rattle off the various options designed to cunningly divert the caller away from a live person. I pushed zero nine consecutive times, cursing the automated voice that stuttered with confusion, and finally put me through.

  "Hi," I whispered when a human answered. "This is Eugenia Ward. I need you to run a surveillance scan on my house and tell me if anyone entered my property in the last twenty-four hours."

  "Sure, Ms. Ward. Do you know your account number?"

  "Can't you look it up by my address?"

  "No problem. And that would be?"

  I rattled off my address and waited breathlessly for the results. "Let me just transfer you over to the right department."

  My heart sank. "Okay, but can you please hurry?"

  "Just a sec."

  Some crackly music played that sounded like Huey Lewis and the News beamed in from outer space. Then someone else came on the line. Before she could make her introductions and query my account details again, I blurted, "Hi, this is Eugenia Ward at 457 Crosshaven Road. I need you to review my security footage and tell me if anyone has entered my property in the last twenty-four hours."

  "457 Crosshaven . . ." The woman mumbled as the typed in my address. "For security purposes, can you give me the phone number associated with the account?"

  I quickly rattled off Virginia's cell phone number and answered a few more security questions (Virginia wasn’t very imaginative).

  "Okay. Great. Here we are. Running scans now . . ."

  I pulled in one long calming breath.

  "How you doin' today, Ms. Ward?"

  "Fine."

  "You sound a bit tense. Everything okay?"

  "Fine. Did you get those results?"

  "Mmhm. Just working on that now. Can I put you on hold? My computer seems to be a little slow today."

  "No. I'd rather just wait here on the phone. Will it be much longer?"

  "No, should just take a few more seconds . . ." She started humming. "Oookay. Here we are. Yup. Looks like nobody has entered the property in the past twenty-four hours."

  "Thank God," I muttered.

  "You sure you're okay? You want me send someone out?"

  "No, it's okay. Thank you. I just—I had a scare, that's all."

  "You're welcome. You have a good rest of the day, Ms. Ward. And if you have any concerns whatsoever, you just give us a call right back. Or you can always push the red emergency button on your intercom panel. That goes straight to the police."

  The technician had described the inner workings of the system when he installed it. Every intercom had a red panic button with a little flap installed over the top, so as to avoid accidental activation and the hefty fine associated with calling out law enforcement for no good reason.

  "Okay. Thanks again," I said and hung up.

  I had all the empirical evidence I needed to feel safe—my bedroom door was locked and Dillon hadn’t stopped by—but why did I feel so exposed? I looked at my phone and checked reception: full bars.

  I also checked the time. Only fifteen interminable minutes had passed since I'd called Ben. Forty-five more to go. So with nothing else left to do, I huddled into the far corner of my closet, concealed behind my winter coats.

  I thought back on the past many months, everything cast in this new terrible light. The pills. Had Dillon taken them? My computer files. Had Dillon opened them? Did that have some sinister new meaning? What was he up to?

  I stared at the hems of my winter coats, in shock and disbelief. All this time, I’d been blithely living my life, with t
he stalker practically living under my own roof!

  In, one two.

  I wanted my pills so bad.

  Out, one two.

  So I sat there, breathing, waiting, and wishing I had kept just one.

  The hour that stretched between hanging up the phone and hearing the welcoming buzz of the gate intercom seemed like one long millennium. Quickly I unearthed myself, dashed to the intercom and looked at the screen, praying to see the welcoming face of Ben. It flickered on. There he sat in the driver's side of his Mustang, arm crooked out of the window, brow scowling with concern.

  I punched the ‘open gate’ button, ran downstairs, outside, flew into his car, and promptly dissolved into tears.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  "Are you shitting me?"

  "No. No, I'm not . . ."

  "So the guy who was arrested for stalking you and your sister . . . is now her boyfriend?"

  I nodded, numb with shock.

  He looked out of the window and ran his hand through his hair. "Wow. Just wow."

  That was about the long and short of it, and "wow" pretty much covered all the bases. I certainly didn't have anything else to add besides silent stupefaction, let alone any ideas on what I was supposed to do about it. Thankfully, Ben did.

  "Go pack your bag. You're moving in with me."

  While I packed, I stationed Ben in front of the window to watch the gate in case Dillon decided to stop by for a friendly visit.

  I tucked a few more t-shirts into my suitcase and went inside my closet to look for anything else that I might have missed. I grabbed a pair of expensive ‘cute butt jeans’ folded benignly on a shelf, suddenly overcome with the momentous occasion.

  I hugged the jeans and leaned against the wall. I had a boyfriend and were going to move in together. We were going to live together. He would come to learn all about my eccentric personal habits. He would come to learn everything about me.

  I'd told him about my phobias and my pill popping problem; he knew I was "shy." But would the reality of having me sit on his couch for twelve hours a day, writing, be too much for him? Would he still love me in the end?