Stalker in the Shadows

“Stay here,” he ordered Monica, and he raced for the sliding glass door at the other end of the kitchen that opened into the backyard.

He didn’t bother being quiet—he flicked the latch open and hauled the door open, leaping out onto the dark back porch and jumping down the steps before turning and heading for the side of the house.

He caught a flicker of movement to the left of his head and he flinched. Something hard and heavy struck him in the cheekbone and jaw.

He didn’t remember falling to the ground. Pain spidered out from his cheekbone, aching and throbbing through his jaw while lights flashed in and out of his vision.

Then a voice, low and male, whispered, “You’ll never catch me.”

He heard a rustle like a leather jacket, and then a shadow passed before his eyes. He tried to make his hands grope for the man as he walked away, but his limbs weren’t responding. The side gate creaked on its hinges as the stalker calmly walked away.

“Shaun!” Monica’s voice was worried.

He rolled to the side, but it made the pain in his head pool to his right side and throb behind his eyes. His hands gripped the earth under him, his nails digging into the dirt. His arms were shaking but he managed to push and sit up. The world tilted and then he saw Monica’s anxious face, blurry and beautiful.

“I told you to stay in the house,” he growled.

“The house alarm is on,” she said. “When you opened the door, I had to turn off the alarm before it started blaring. Then I heard something thud. Looks like it was your face.”

“He could have still been here,” Shaun said.

“I heard the gate close, so I knew he wasn’t here,” Monica said impatiently, trying to get a closer look at Shaun’s face. “Can you see okay? How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Three.” He tried to haul himself to his feet, but the pain in his head jumped a magnitude and he had to pause a moment on his knees, breathing hard, before the throbbing slowly lessened.

“Let’s get you inside.” Monica took his arm and helped him stagger into the kitchen.

He sat heavily in a chair at the table and let the room spin around him. When Monica turned on the lights, he squinted and covered his eyes with his hand.

“Sorry,” she said, “but I need light to look at your face.” She pulled his hand away and he felt her soft, cool fingers gently stroking his brow, his cheek.

“You’ll have a giant bruise,” she said, “but I think you’ll be okay. No stitches, anyway.”

Just a giant headache.

Her amber eyes clouded to mahogany. “Did you see anything?”

“Nothing. I ran out and he hit me.”

“I saw a shovel lying near you.”

“He stopped to speak to me.” The words came out hard through his teeth as he said, “‘You’ll never catch me.’ That’s what he said.”

Her eyes narrowed. “That’s arrogant of him.”

“It means he’s more likely to make a mistake. This isn’t the first time he’s done this.”

“This is the third time he’s come after me in two days.” Monica got a towel and wet it with cold water. “How often did your sister get letters from him?”

“Every day or every other day.”

“I don’t see a guy like this waiting too long to start harassing me, do you?”

“No.”

“So that means I can pinpoint when I might have met him.”

“What do you mean?” Shaun winced as she pressed the towel to his throbbing cheek.

“The only people I’ve talked to about my free children’s clinic are my family, whom I’ve told not to say anything, the potential investors, my hospital director friend who’s helping me draft the business plan and the accountant I’ve hired. I’m thinking the stalker is one of the potential investors I talked to in the past few weeks.”

“Do you remember who you’ve talked to?”

“I attended three large parties in the past two weeks to meet people and talk about the clinic. Before those parties, the last investor I talked to was over two months ago. So I think the stalker could be someone I spoke to at any of those three parties.”

“What parties?”

“The Zoe International charity banquet last week—your dad was there. The annual Tosca bottle unveiling banquet a few days before that, and then two weeks ago, the Sonoma Businessmen’s Association dinner.”

“You went to all those?”

“I went in Dad’s place. He doesn’t like going to those things, but I use them as opportunities to keep up relationships with other businesses and the Joy Luck Life Spa, and recently I’ve been sending out feelers for investors for my clinic.”

“So your stalker might be someone you met at one of those events,” Shaun said. He reached up to grab her hand and stop her ministrations to his face. Her skin felt silky under his rough fingers, and he didn’t immediately let go, instead rubbing his thumb over a smooth knuckle.

What was he doing? He didn’t need complications in his life. He dropped her hand and cleared his throat. “Do you think you can come up with a list of people you spoke to about the clinic?”

She was staring at her hand. She dropped the towel onto the kitchen table. “I think so.”

“You can leave off anyone who already knew about your clinic before two weeks ago. I don’t think this guy would have waited longer than two weeks to start following you.”

“Did you ever investigate how he might have met your sister?”

“I tried, but none of us knew when she’d started receiving the letters, and since I’d been down in San Diego at the time, it was hard to find out where she’d gone and where she could have met her stalker.”

“There’s a chance he’d try to meet me face-to-face again, without me knowing he’s my stalker. Do you think that’s something he’d enjoy doing?”

“Definitely.” His eyes narrowed as he studied her face, which had a calculating look. “What are you planning?”

“For the past several weeks, I’d been planning to give a party for about forty people. Some of them are already investors for the clinic, but some need a little more information before they commit.”

“So you’re thinking you’ll go through with planning the party? And you can invite some of the people you might have met in the past two weeks.”

“I can’t invite everyone I talked to, but I can certainly invite many of them.”

“If the stalker keeps coming after you, we can figure out more clues about him and narrow down who he might be. I remember he wore a leather jacket or leather coat tonight. I could hear the leather rustling.”

“That’s a start.”