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Both Noah and I spoke at the same time. I glared at Noah as I tried to ease my daughter’s anxiety. “Your dad will not threaten anyone you deem worthy of your attention. Not in any way.”
Noah frowned at me. “That’s not fair.”
“Thanks, Mom.” Once more I relished the ever so rare mommy-daughter hugs.
I held her tight in my arms as I patted her back. “Now if said gentleman breaks your heart, I will hand your dad the shotgun.”
Noah walked into the room and high fived me while Sky let out a loud groan.
Twenty minutes later we were all packed up and on our way home. We hadn’t been living in the house for very long before Noah’s mission. It hadn’t even cleared escrow, but the owners were happy to let us pay rent until the transfer took place.
As we pulled into the driveway I frowned at the front door. We had a mailbox, sure, but we hadn’t yet started the process ofchanging our address anyway. There should be no reason for the assortment of colorful envelopes and packages at the front door.
The hairs at the back of my neck were raised. My heart pounded in my chest. Something told me I was not going to like what I would find at my front door. Noah noticed the same thing. I could see the wheels turning in his head. “Sky, stay in the car.” He turned to me. “I’m guessing telling you the same thing is pointless.”
I glared at him as I got out of the car. I stomped to the front door and inspected the two parcels and five envelopes. Each dated, one for every day that we were away from the house. Whoever the asshole was, he knew we were not home. He knew he would not get caught.
“I am so sick of this, Noah.” My voice was raised but I was beyond caring. “He wants me, he’s going to have to come get me, because I have a fucking army behind me. But I am guessing he knows that, which is why he’s playing these games.” I turned to the street camera. The only one facing our house. “You hear me you fucking coward, come and get me. See if you are any match for the people I have surrounding me. I am so sick of you and your fucking cowardly games.”
Noah held on to me, and I turned into his embrace. “We’ll get him, sweetheart.” He kissed the top of my head. If I hadn’t been so close to him, I may not have heard what he whispered next. “That camera.”
“What?”
“No one knows that camera exists.” He turned and frowned at the camera. “Jared looked into it. It belongs to HOA, but when the petitions went out about privacy, the project was abandoned. Not even the Salingers knew about it until I asked Jared to look into it. All the bureaucracy complicated things but the bottom line is, it still records, and the company that installed it keeps everything, but no one actually looks at it.”
“So, I was just screaming at some HOA official, this asshole will never hear me.”
“Babe, he was never going to hear you. Unless, he installed the camera. But it was here before we moved, so I am guessing it has a record of the activity on this part of the street.”
He checked the lock and the alarm. No one had tampered with anything. “Get in the car with Sky and let me just clear the house.”
I, in turn, rolled my eyes at him. “Go do what you need to do. I’m not moving from here.”
“Fine but call Jared in the meantime. Tell him what happened.”
Noah walked back to the car and opened the trunk. As he walked back, I noticed the hand gun. I guessed that he had all sorts of weapons in the trunk of his car, and that he would want it put into the safe before anyone else got here. After the lecture Skylar had gotten about never touching the weapons, I knew she wouldn’t even question him. He unlocked and deactivated the alarm. I took the time to call Jared.
He sounded out of breath and I rushed to explain what had happened. He was patient as he asked me questions. By the time Noah was back outside, I was quick to hand the phone over to him.
Noah took the phone from me. “You and Sky get inside. I’ll bring our stuff in. As soon as everything is packed away, we can call the police. Don’t touch the envelopes.”
I nodded and went to the car to fetch my daughter. I was still angry, but with the rush of adrenaline leaving, the fear set in. The asshole knew where I stayed. He knew that I had moved. And considering the envelopes had been dated since the first day we were not at home, I had to believe that he knew that we were away and wanted me to know that he was watching.
An hour later, my home was once again surrounded by police and staff from Salinger Security. Someone had even brought garden chairs so they could gather around the large dining table. The envelopes were fingerprinted. As it turned out, the police had to wait for a warrant to view the footage from the camera. Jared looked very serious and innocent when he told them that they better get on that before the footage was deleted. He then smiled at Noah and went back to his laptop. Seriously, he brought his laptop and no one found that suspicious. At least, no one verbalized that it was suspicious.
At least Sky and I were not asked to leave our home again. It was established that wherever we went, the stalker would know. We had assumed that he had been monitoring me for a while.
Once the police officers left, Jared brought up the footage. It wasn’t long before he had fast forwarded to the point where a delivery guy had delivered the first envelope. Then twenty-four hours later the second one. And so on, and so on.
“You know.” Jared looked between Nick and Noah. “He doesn’t know that we’re back early.”
28
NOAH
Those words coming from Jared, made every muscle in my body go stiff. It meant using my house as bait. Yeah, no one outside of the people at Salinger Security knew that we were back. Unless, of course, the asshole was watching us. My gut told me we didn’t have much of a reprieve. And after the mission we had been on, I was confident there was nothing wrong with my gut.
Still, I didn’t want my daughter anywhere near the asshole who was terrorizing her mother. I didn’t want her mother around much either. In fact, for what I planned, I wanted both of them as far away as possible.
