The detective snagged another empty chair from nearby for me.
Ahanti told him her story. When she reached the part about Geoff’s burned-out face in the picture, she started to shake to the point where her teeth chattered. I finished the story for her, repeating back for the detective what she’d told Mark and me.
The detective pulled a tissue from the box on his desk and wiped it across his forehead even though the air conditioning kept the humidity outside at bay. He tossed the tissue into the trash near my feet. “If we knew who your stalker was, we could put a restraining order in place. The problem we’re facing right now is that he’s keeping himself hidden.”
Ahanti was still looking at him like she expected there was a solution coming.
The tone of the detective’s voice carried an apology. There wasn’t a solution coming.
The detective drew out another tissue and dabbed his face again. “In cases like these, we can’t allocate resources to investigate the stalker’s identity. If he makes contact in any way where you see his face, even calls you on the phone so we could get a name from the number, you come back in and let us know. Until then, there’s nothing we can do.”
5
“I shouldn’t have called Geoff,” Ahanti said as soon as we crossed the dividing line between the chilled interior of the police station and the muggy sun outside.
I wanted to say something comforting or encouraging or brave, but everything I came up with in my head would have sounded trite to me had the roles been reversed and I was the one afraid for Mark’s life.
Even with all the murder investigations I’d been a part of in the past ten months, none of them made me feel this way. In Peter’s case, I’d always had a niggling doubt that he might not be as innocent as he wanted me to believe. With Uncle Stan, he was already gone before I got involved with hunting down the person who hurt him.
After those two, the victims had been strangers or people I barely knew. This time it was my best friend.
I couldn’t help feeling like I’d given Ahanti false hope. Not only that, but she was still unprotected from someone sick enough to burn her fiancé’s face out of a photo.
“He’ll never believe the I’m-breaking-up-with-you thing again.” Ahanti stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. “Will you talk to him? He might listen to you about how dangerous this could be for him.”
If it was anyone other than Ahanti, he might take my word as a criminal defense attorney. In this situation, nothing was going to keep him away when she was in danger.
I motioned for her to follow me so that we weren’t standing like human traffic cones in the middle of the sidewalk. “That’s not a good plan. He might be in danger, but so are you. What we need is a plan to keep you both safe.”
“I already have a decent security system in my apartment. Maybe I should head out of town for a bit.”
Unless she wanted to move permanently, a vacation wasn’t going to be much help. Her stalker had been infatuated with her this long, and she’d gone away on trips before. He’d be waiting when she got back. And we still wouldn’t be any closer to figuring out who he was.
Even if she did move, she’d have no guarantees that he wouldn’t simply follow her. It all depended on how deep he felt the connection to her was.
A man passed by us in the opposite direction close enough that he brushed against my purse and set it swinging.
Ahanti flinched away from him and looked back over her shoulder until he was well out of range to grab one of us.
It took all my self-control not to do the same. Paranoia and anxiety were my constant companions, but even when I’d lived in the DC area, I hadn’t felt scared to walk alone in the daylight in the nicer parts of the city. Now I wanted to check for people following us in the storefront glass, and I wished I’d asked Mark to skip his meeting and stay with us.
And this guy wasn’t even my stalker. We couldn’t simply do nothing and hope this would go away. It wouldn’t. One of the stalkers my parents were hired to defend had tried to kill the object of his obsession. They didn’t all reach that point, but I didn’t want to take that risk. I was certain Geoff and Ahanti wouldn’t want to take that risk with her life, either.
Even a restraining order didn’t guarantee the stalker would leave her alone, but if we had enough information on him to get one, she’d also at least know who to watch out for. Right now, every person we passed could be a threat.
It wasn’t a good way to live. She’d be headed for an ulcer before she turned thirty-five.
“If the police can’t help until we know who this guy is, then that’s what we need to figure out. It’s time for us to hunt him.”
By the time we reached Ahanti’s apartment building, I already regretted my use of the word hunt. Clearly I’d been too graphic in recounting my adventures in Fair Haven. After I made my statement about hunting down her stalker, Ahanti looked like she was going to throw up on my shoes.
“You promise I won’t have to confront him?” Ahanti asked.
“I promise.” Mark was already going to hate this idea enough without me doing anything to make myself threatening to Ahanti’s stalker. “All we need to do is figure out who this guy is. We’ll let the police handle it from there.”
She fished around in her purse again, still struggling to find her key.
Even once she had a restraining order in place, she needed to take steps to protect herself. “Little tip. Try to make sure you always have your key out and ready before you reach the door.”
I left out the it’s too easy an opportunity for your stalker to corner you otherwise.
She shuddered. “I hate having to think about this.”
I stuck out my hands, and she plopped her bag into my grip. It was nearly the size of a child’s backpack and at least as heavy.
She held it open with her now-free hand and wiggled her key out from behind her sketch pad and case of graphite pencils. We’d been apart long enough that I forgot all the things she carried around with her.
Once inside the building, she headed for the elevator.
I touched her arm. “The stairs are probably better,” I said softly. “In an elevator, there’s no place to run.”
Her skin took on a yellow tinge under her natural beautiful tanned skin tone.
“Right.” She pivoted and headed for the stairwell. “Right.”
I wanted to tell her this wouldn’t be forever, but stalking laws were much too weak. Unless her stalker found someone else to fixate on, this might have to be her new normal.
