She drew in a long breath, and it came out shaky. “The other stuff seemed innocent. It was mostly little gifts left at the studio. I get thank-you cards from clients sometimes, when I’ve helped them cover up a scar or hide an old tattoo of an ex’s name. I didn’t think the gifts were weird even though the cards were a bit personal.” She made an I-don’t-get-it gesture. “You’ve been there. We spend hours, sometimes days, working with clients. It’s easy to feel connected after that amount of time. People share all kinds of personal details. It’s not the first time I had a client feel like we were friends or even ask me out.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. Crap. She had told me all that. She’d even shown me a couple of the cards. We’d thought it was harmless and sweet. At one point, we’d even thought some of them might be from Geoff. I should have known better. Me, of all people. “Was the photo the only thing that seemed threatening?”
Ahanti’s gaze dropped.
My hand clenched around Mark’s arm. The gesture was so out of character for her, as if she thought she’d done something wrong.
“Some of the more recent notes mentioned things he shouldn’t have known about. One sounded almost like something I’d written in an email to you. The other was something I was sure I’d only told Geoff in a phone call.”
That explained why she’d been too afraid to use her phone or computer to tell me what was going on. Her stalker seemed to have somehow tapped into her private communications. Since the stalker was sending things to the studio, that also explained why she’d been afraid to say anything while we were there. Right now, we had no idea how he accessed her private communications. He could have bugged her studio or hacked her email. Maybe both.
Unfortunately, if he was tech-savvy enough, he might have even hacked her phone or put a keystroke tracker on her computer. As technology progressed, criminals were progressing right along with it.
I took her hand to make sure I had her attention. “You know this isn’t your fault, right?”
She raised her shoulders in a noncommittal shrug. “I must have encouraged him somehow, or this wouldn’t be happening.”
It was a common misconception about stalking cases that didn’t involve a celebrity. Many people assumed that the victim led the perpetrator on in some way and was partly culpable for what was happening to them. Nothing could be further from the truth. And it didn’t help that, at times, some movies and books portrayed stalking behavior as romantic. When Twilight was a craze, I was never able to get past how creepy Edward’s behavior seemed. Even then, I’d seen too much of the dark side to ever be that innocent again. Since my parents never sheltered me, I don’t think I was ever really innocent, even as a child.
The fact that Ahanti would even think she was partly to blame reminded me of the case I’d been part of only a couple of weeks ago. Blaming the victim had eventually led to the victims becoming murderers themselves. “You’re no more to blame than a woman who’s been raped.”
She adjusted the strap of the bag she had slung across her chest. It reminded me of a soldier strapping on his weapon for battle. And it looked a lot more like the Ahanti I knew.
“So is there something I can do about it?” she asked.
Mark held his phone out to her. “First, I think you should call your fiancé.” He glanced at me. “He deserves to know what’s going on.”
He didn’t have to say it’s what I would want. I heard it, and Ahanti must have, too, because she accepted the phone from him.
“And then,” Mark said, “we’re going to the police.”
An hour and a half later, Ahanti and I sat in the nearest Metropolitan Police station. Because the stalker sent his “love notes” to Skin Canvas and that was in their jurisdiction, it seemed like as good a place as any to start.
By the time Ahanti had finished talking to Geoff and we’d taken her to buy a pay-as-you-go phone that the stalker wouldn’t know about, Mark was barely going to have time to make his appointment at the lab. I told him we’d be fine to wait by ourselves to talk to an officer.
After all, even I couldn’t get into too much trouble inside a police station. Not life-threatening trouble, anyway.
Ahanti and I waited in silence, the only break coming from another text. Mandy sent me a picture of a thick, raw-looking red line across a palm and the words you were right. She couldn’t say I hadn’t warned her.
Another five minutes passed, and Ahanti crossed and uncrossed her legs. “Maybe this isn’t a good idea. I’m going to be away from work for most of the day. If he’s watching my business, he’ll know something’s up.”
Once we reported this, that was our next hurdle. Some stalking victims refused to change anything about their life, seeing that as a victory for their harasser. Others wanted to take every precaution to protect themselves in case the stalker lashed out, including moving.
“For all he knows, you had a doctor’s appointment and forgot your phone. Or you felt sick and went home. Have you gotten anything at your apartment?”
Ahanti worried her bottom lip. “I don’t think so. It’s all come to Skin Canvas so far.”
“Then it’s likely he doesn’t know where you live.”
That was a bit of a stretch. He likely knew her building. He’d probably followed her on her walk home, but her building had a locking external door. You needed a key to get in or a resident had to buzz you in. Mark and I had gotten in the other day because one of my former neighbors recognized me and knew Ahanti and I were close. That meant it wasn’t impossible for someone to gain access who shouldn’t, but it would be hard, and Ahanti would have noticed if someone followed her right in and up to her floor.
We fell into silence. For the first time, I didn’t know what to say to Ahanti. All the things I’d planned to say, all the things I’d been looking forward to talking to her about, now seemed inappropriate for the situation.
Ahanti shot me a sideways glance, and the corners of her eyes crinkled like she had a smile inside that she wasn’t sure whether to let out or not either. “Mark’s nothing like Peter.”
I laugh-snorted. If she could compliment Mark and take a jab at my ex-boyfriend at the same time, maybe I shouldn’t have worried about what to say after all. It seemed like Ahanti wanted a bit of normal in the midst of it all. “That’s an understatement.”
“How’d it go with your dad?”
I held back a second snort. It was getting to be a bad habit I needed to quit. This time, though, I didn’t feel like adding a laugh to it. “He seemed to like Mark.”
“That bad?”
It hadn’t really been. After our near argument prior to dessert, he’d been civil the rest of the evening. More than civil. If he’d been anyone else, I would have said he was amiable, so much so that Mark even commented on it afterward.
He was also up to something.
Mark hinted that I might be imagining things, but he had the good sense not to say it explicitly.
A detective with a nasal voice called Ahanti’s name, and she clutched my arm like she thought I might stay behind. I hadn’t even considered it.
My mom couldn’t have known when she recommended Mark to the head of the forensic research program that she’d be putting me back in DC at the time Ahanti would need me. My pastor would call it God’s timing.
The detective led us back to a desk with enough files and scattered papers piled on it that my fingers twitched to organize it for him. His coffee cup had what looked like a permanent ring around it on the desk.
Ahanti sat on the metal chair next to his desk. She stayed on the edge rather than settling in, her back so straight that her spine could have doubled as a measuring tape.
