I didn’t want to think I’d be targeted because it made me feel as if I was thinking too highly of myself. Thinking I was important enough to be attacked.
Do you have any idea how much you’re worth right now?
That’s laughable, of course. This isn’t about me. It’s about me as a potential fall guy for Isabella’s murder, and in that, hell yes, I’m valuable. Someone has gone to a lot of trouble to frame me. Am I questioning the possibility they’d hire someone to find me?
I’m almost certainly not dealing with a crazed fan here. Whoever killed Isabella has money, and that means they could hire someone to do the police’s work. Because, let’s face it, the cops aren’t exactly putting up roadblocks to find me. I’m not public enemy number one. They’ll just track my banking cards, block my passport, and remind the public to call if they see me.
That isn’t enough for the killer.
The guy in the park was the same one who attacked me in the alley. Yes, I’d surprised him there as he’d been following me, but he’d acted swiftly as he had tonight. That arm hold told me he knew what he was doing. He wasn’t some random guy who made it his mission to find me in hopes of a reward.
And hehasfound me. Twice now.
Or is it three times? I keep thinking of that first night, the man I’d briefly seen step from an alley and then sink back into the shadows when I spotted him.
He hasn’t “found” me three times. He’s never lost me. He’s been tracking me from the start, waiting for the right moment to…
To what? Turn me in to the police? That only takes a phone call.
The killer is framing me for Isabella’s murder. Yet, being innocent, I would fight like hell.
What if I never get to trial? What if I die in an alley? In Central Park? Die with further evidence planted on my corpse?
Again, I recoil from the thought. No one’s going to kill me. I’m not worth that.
If I want to succumb to that voice whispering about my worth, then perhaps Ishouldlisten to it here. My lack of importance, my lack of roots, my lack of ties, all that makes meeasyto kill. I’m single, childless, living abroad with only a school-teacher mom to care whether I die. It would be easy to get rid of me.
Is that the plan?
I honestly don’t know.
There’s also the possibility that my stalker is Isabella’s killer. That it could even be her mystery lover. I balk at that – it doesn’t fit the man from those texts. But I already consider him a potential suspect. Why couldn’t he be my stalker, too?
I feel eighteen again, lost and confused and alone. So damned alone.
I could have died tonight.
That’s what it comes down to. I could have died.
I sit and I stare, my coffee and pie untouched. When the sixty-something server comes by with her pot of coffee, she sees I don’t need it and murmurs, “Everything okay, hon?” in a soft Southern accent, and I start to cry. I’m mortified, of course, wiping tears and stammering apologies, but she brushes them off and slides in across from me and says, “You need me to call anyone?” When I don’t answer, she leans over and lowers her voice. “A friend?” She pauses. “The police?”
I shake my head.
“You sure, hon?”
I nod. “I just… I had a close call. I did something stupid and had a close call.”
“Everyone’s entitled to do stupid things, especially when they’re young.” Her dark eyes meet mine. “No one deserves a ‘close call’ for doing them.”
Tears spill, and I wipe them away and thank her.
“You sure you don’t want me to phone someone?”
I shake my head. “I just need a place to sit. I know I’m taking up a table.” I reach into my pocket and pull out a twenty. “I can pay for more food, and you can give it to someone who needs it.”
Her plump hand covers mine. “You keep your money. We’re empty tonight, and I don’t mind not being the only person in here. Hal in the back is too deaf to come running when there’s trouble. Or that’s his excuse, lazy old fart.”
As she rises, she takes my pie. “This apple isn’t fit for a dog. It comes straight from the freezer. You want the sweet potato pie. I make it myself. Only place in New York you can get it this time of year.”
